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THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



OF 



HENRY T. STANTON 



EMBRACING 



THE MONEYLESS MAN 

AND OTHER POEMS 



AND 



JACOB BROWN 

AND OTHER POEMS 






}^,>^, , ,,^ .,^ 



CINCINNATI 

THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 

1901 



THt L BRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 

O^E Copv Received 

APR. 18 1901 

CopyRiQmt enthy 
ICLASS XXc No 
COPY A. 



Copyright, 1S70, by 
HENRY C. TURNBULL. Jr. 






Copyright, 1875, 


BV 


HENRY T. STANTON 


C 




h- 




Claim, 




Sje'O' 




r • 





CONTENTS— Part I. 



PAGE 

The Moneyless Man 9 

Nameless 12 

Caste 15 

The Nasturtium Flower 17 

Winter Night 23 

The Life-Way 25 

Ideal Presence 27 

The Eastern Star 28 

Retrospection 32 

Dead Flowers 33 

A Pipe After Tea 34 

Under the Pines 37 

She :^S 

The Faith She Plighted Me 41 

Charity 45 

Seventy - 40 

Sabbath School Bells 50 

Type and Time 54 

Sweetheart 63 

Types of Life 66 

The Path 68 

(iii) 



iv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Bivouac 70 

Heart Lessons 73 

Time at the South • • • ■ 80 

Double Life 84 

The Little Boy Guiding the Plow 86 

The Flower-Graves • • • 89 

Fallen 93 

Midnight Bells • • • 102 

After the War 106 

Sixty-Five m 

To Master George W. Johnston 120 

His Last Day 122 

Elmwood 127 

Response — Impromptu 129 

The Dead that Shone 131 

At Clearing I37 

Cure for Headache 138 

Underneath I39 

Sixty-Six 141 

Lee 153 

The Devil's Hollow 157 

Thanksgiving 160 

Change 162 

Good-night 169 

When School Lets Out 171 

Christmas 173 

The Bourbon Horse-thief 175 



CONTENTS— Part II. 



PAGE 

Jacob Brown 189 

Out of the Old Year into the New 205 

Down the Road 211 

Weeds 214 

Going to School 216 

A Mensa et Thoro 218 

My Mother and I 219 

The Spring 226 

True Version 228 

Drawing it Fine 231 

Murder 239 

Metempsychosis 242 

The Red Cross 243 

A Special Plea 248 

The Midnight Rose 249 

Self-Sacrifice 250 

The Lost Curl , 260 

Culex in Carmine » 262 

The Court of Berlin . . . . . . , 270 

The Last Leaf 272 

May in Mason 273 

Pythian Lines 277 

The Crown on Guard 282 

(v) 



vi COXTEXTS. 

PAGE 

Our Dead 283 

Parson Giles 287 

Omnipotens Veritas 303 

From Me to You 313 

Gambrinus 315 

The Grove at vSt. Elmo 330 

The Photograph 332 

Notes 335 



P.A.RT I 

THE MONEYLESS MAIST 

J^S^lD OTHER FOEIVLS 



THE MONEYLESS MAN. 

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth, 
Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth ? 
Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave, 
When the poor and the wretched shall ask and 

receive ? 
Is there no place at all, where a knock from the 

poor, 
Will bring a kind angel to open the door ? 
Ah, search the wide world wherever you can 
There is no open door for a Moneyless Man ! 

Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light 
Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night, 
Where the rich-hanging velvet in shadowy fold 
Sweeps gracefully down with its trimmings of gold. 
And the mirrors of silver take up, and renew. 
In long lighted vistas the 'wildering view : 
Go there ! at the banquet, and find, if you can, 
A welcoming smile for a Moneyless Man ! 

9 



10 THE MOXEYLESS MAN. 

Go, look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire, 
Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire, 
Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within. 
And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin ; 
Walk down the long aisles, see the rich and the great 
In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate; 
Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can, 
^^llo opens a pew to a Moneyless Man. 

Go, look in the Banks, where Mammon has told 
His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold ; 
Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor. 
Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore ! 
Walk up to their counters — ah, there you may stay 
'Til your limbs grow old, 'til your hairs grow gray, 
And you '11 find at the Banks not one of the clan 
With money to lend to a Moneyless Man ! 

Go, look to yon Judge, in his dark-flowing gown, 
With the scales wherein law weigheth equity down ; 
Where Ire frowns on the weak and smiles on the 

strong, 
And punishes right whilst he justifies wrong ; 
Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid, 
To render a verdict — they Ve already made : 
Go there, in the court-room, and find, if you can. 
Any law for the cause of a Moneyless Man ! 

Then go to your hovel — no raven has fed 

The wife who has suffered too long for her bread ; 



THE MONEYLESS MAN. n 

Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss the death-frost 
From the lips of the angel your poverty lost : 
Then turn in your agony upward to God, 
And bless, while it smites you, the chastening rod, 
And you '11 find, at the end of your life's little span, 
There 's a welcome above for a Moneyless Man ! 



NAMELESS. 

There were great lights from the pahice 

Streaming on the outer trees, 
That, with fleckings thro' the trelhs. 

Played a-tremor at his knees, 
As a minstrel stranger, friendless, 

Underneath the walls of Fame 
Sat in silence, whilst the endless 

Notes of nlorv-music came. 



Paths, to him, were bleak and aimless, 

As he sat within the shade, 
Telling o'er the wonders, nameless, 

That his poet-heart had made : 
" Could he pass the amber portal. 

And the jasper halls along. 
Where the poet-souls immortal 

Held their revelry of song? 

" Could he strike a chord of sorrow 
In the upper, choral spheres. 
Where to-morrow, and to-morrow, 
It would echo down the years ? 



XAMELESS. 

Could he grasp the ivy cHnging 
At the marble casement, now, 

And amid the spirits singing, 

Wear it, deathless, on his brow ? " 



Once he thought to climb the terrace 

To the open, opal gate, 
Where, beyortd the sweeping arras. 

Swelled the voices of the great ; 
W'here the stricken harp-strings golden 

Gave their notes in high accord 
To the music-stories olden, 

To the glory of the Lord. 



But his soul, untaught and simple. 

Shrinking outward, turned away. 
Where the great lights from the temple 

Drove the night-time from the day : 
I shall seek the shadow, yonder 

Underneath the silent pine ; 
There are harp-notes higher, grander 

Than may ever be from mine ! " 

Soft he touched the strings, like Summer 
Touching o'er the barren trees, 

And the night bore out their murmur. 
Through its alleys, to the seas ; 

Softer, sweeter went the cadence 
Through the branches and above, 



M 



XA MEL ESS. 

As come visions unto maidens 
In the budding-time of love. 

Through the gates of opal splendor, 

And along the jasper wall, 
Pass the notes of music tender, 

Through the corridor and hall ; 
And his tones sweep in the chamber 

From the shadow and the gloom, 
And their liquid echoes clamber 

Up the arras to the dome. 

And they rise and fall like billows, 

In the alcoves of the air, 
Passing in and out the willows, 

And across beyond the mere ; 
High, and grand, and godly power 

Sweeps along the palace eaves, 
'Til the iv3'-vine, in flower, 

Trembles luusic from its leaves. 



And the poet-souls may listen 

To the outer harp to-night, 
And the great lamps gleam and glisten 

In an ecstacy of light ; 
These are music-tones undying. 

These are worthy highest name. 
From the poet-spirit Ijing 

Underneath the walls of Fame. 



CASTE. 



If, as a burn, 
That from the shadow fleeing, 
Seeks the shine 
On some broad river, 
I now could turn 
'i'he current of my being 
Into thine. 
To flow forever — 
Ijclievest thou this tribute-blood 
Would give thy veins to darker flood ? 

The tuneful brooks 
That down the slopes are going 
To the sea 
With music-laughter. 
In hidden nooks 
Begin their silver flowing, 
Silently, 
To chorus after. 
Believest thou, because obscure 
Of origin, they are not pure ? 



^^ CASTE. 

Not in the grand, 
Resistless, moving river, 
Do we find 
The kicent crystal ; 
But out the land 
The springs run limpid ever, 
Overtwined 
By vine and thistle : 
Not from the pure, pearled fountain vein; 
Do rivers take their debris stains. 



O, maid ! O, queen ! 
O, proud and pulsing woman ! 
If the tide 
That floods these valleys, 
Less pure were seen 
Than that in any human, 
It should hide 
111 covert alleys. 
Where cunning eyes should never trace 
The slow course of its under-race. 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

1 SAW, last night, a ruin gray, 

An isolated tower, 
A work of art, from which decay 
Had crumbled portions every day, 

A feature, every hour ; 

And o'er it grew a summer vine, 

A purple Morning Glory, 
That hung in many a waving line, 
And many a clustering tassel fine, 
From turrets old and hoary ; 

And underneath the ruined wall. 

In moody spirit lying, 
I saw the white wave rise and fall, 
And heard the sea-bird's mystic call. 

Far on the waters dymg. 

The wood upon the sombre hill 

Its leafy bosom hushes, 
And nothing wakes the midnight still. 
Save here and there a Whip-po-wil 

From widely scattered bushes. 

B* 17 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

I know not if my eyelids fell — 
My pulses were not failing ; 

I saw the ocean's even swell ; 

At intervals, my ear could tell 

The lone bird's far-off wailing. 

And while I lay, with wandering eye 

O'er Heaven's starry arches, 
And watched the meteor shooting by. 
And saw the Pleiads holding high 
Their ever-burning torches, 

A voice came from the ruin old, 
At first, a pleasant murmur ; 
And then I heard a story told 
In accents stronger, and more bold, 
Of Winter and of Summer. 



The Vine said to the Tower gray: 
" My leaves about thee flinging, 
Thou shalt not feel the burning day, 
I1iy rocks shall never waste away 

\Miere my green arms are clinging. 

Uphold me with thy sturdy hand. 

And lift me from the shadow, 
And thou shalt feel thy gray brow fanned 
^^'ith zephyrs, through its leafy band, 
From fragrant field and meadow. 



THE XASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

" I '11 gather all the morning dew 
Within my purple flower, 
And when the sun comes up anew, 
I '11 wash thy granite bosom true 
With all my silvery shower. 

'* So tenderly I '11 twine around 

P2ach fragment, trembling over, 
That it shall spurn the colder ground, 
And feel itself as sweetly bound 
x^s lady to her lover. 

" I *ll make thy portal emerald-green, 
With here and there a blossom, 
And thou shalt have some fairy queen 
To come into my leaves, and lean 
Her forehead on thy bosom. 

" Oh, I will make thy life so sweet, 
In one delightful Summer, 
That pulses in thy heart shall beat 
And then — I '11 wither at thy feet, 
And die without a murmur." 

Then spoke the cold gray stones, and said 

" Thy life, sweet Vine, is golden ; 
The season all its charms has shed 
Upon thy fair and fragile liead, 
While I am gray and olden. 



19 



20 THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

" I need not tell thee whence I sprung ; 

For yonder craggy mountain 
Is not more old, nor yet more young, 
Although its brows have frowaiing hung 

Since Adam, o'er the fountain. 

" My form is rude, as thine is fair ; 

My limbs are cold and cheerless ; 
I feel the very summer air 
Come searching through me, even where 

Thou cling'st in beauty peerless. 

" No zephyr comes but takes away 

A portion of my being ; 
The gathered dew, that starry sjDray 
Which thou upon my breast would'st lay, 

But aids my life in fleeing. 

" The sunshine through thy \-ery leaves 
My particles doth sever ; 
And while thy tender bosom grieves, 
One after one an atom leaves, 
And 1 am dying ever. 

" The summer rain that bids thee live, 
And opens out thy blossom. 
Can to my life no freshness give, 
But takes away the strength I have 
In passage through my bosom. 



THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

"Oh, I have seen a form like thine 
Reach up — how very often! — 
And here its gentle tendrils twine 
About this frosty head of mine. 
As thou, my cares to soften. 

" And I have seen the Autumn too 
The fairest trellis redden ; 
And \\'inter, pour its breathing through 
The very cup that caught the dew. 
And all its powers deaden. 

" And one by one their lives have fled, 
As thine will soon be flying ; 
And at my feet a fragrant bed 
Of withered leaves, and tendrils dead, 
In sorrow will be Ivins:. 



" I cannot weep, though all I love, 
The freshest and the fairest. 
That on my gray rocks live and move, 
Must take the garb that Winter wove 
For that which now thou wearest. 

" The Winters come, and come and go, 
And I am here repining ; 
I feel alike the sun and snow. 
The zephyr or the storms that blow, 
Where thy green arms are twining.' 



22 THE NASTURTIUM FLOWER. 

The voices hushed, and silence came, 

A spell upon the Heaven ; 

And underneath the Pleiad's flame, 

The mantled tower stood the same ; 

The ocean swelled as even. 



I prithee, lady, read my dreani 

To thine interpretation. 
And it shall take that brighter gleam 
From thy poetic current stream. 

To music's sweet relation. 



In blessing me it must have been. 

At that enchanted hour. 
That thou, of fay and blossom kin, 
Had left a spirit sleeping in 
The bosom of the flower. 



And thus to me in vision thrall 

Came glories without number : 
I see the white wave rise and fall, 
I hear the sea-bird's mystic call 
In echoes from my slumber. 

Ah, unto such a soul as mine 

The gentle fairy's doin' 
Was but to tell in softer line. 
That thou wert yet a tender vine. 
And I a crumbled ruin ! 



WINTER NIGHT. 



When the soul is weary, weary, 
Tlirough these winter days so dreary, 

With their wilderness of white, 
There's a charm for such an illness 
In the shadow and the stillness 

Of the sober, thoughtful night. 



When the earth's green shoots are dying, 
And the cold snow o'er them flying — 

Flying all the Winter day, 
Then the heart will beat in sadness. 
While with strange, fantastic gladness 

The white liakes seem to play. 

But the purple Night comes, slowly, 
As some abbess, grave and holy. 

Up the still aisles of the sky ; 
And the red stars troop the arches 
With their legions, to the marches 

That are onlv heard on high. 



24 



WINTER NIGHT. 

Then the soul, no longer minion, • 

Beats the trammels from its pinion, j 

Bids its sorrow all adieu ; j 

And the scarcely dying even, \ 
Sees in yonder tranquil Heaven 

Its white wing cleaving through. , 



THE LIFE-WAY. 



The axe-man of life, at the Master's decree, 
Hath come from the clearing and girdled a tree — 
An oak that was leaning in sympathy o'er 
The ashes of trees that were girdled before ; 
And under our feet, as the passage we tread, 
The branches are withered, the blossoms are dead. 

Before is a forest, behind is a plain 

Where verdure may never be trodden again ; 

For, on to the shadow and into the shade. 

We follow the way that the woodman has made : 

Though sturdy the monarchs, and stately and tall, 

The axe of the woodman must girdle them all. 

The forest is Life, and the trees are the Years, 
The leaves under-foot are the symbols of tears, 
And shadows are with us wherever we go, 
And spirits are weary and eyelids a-flow ; 
For Time is the woodman, and over his track 
The feet of humanity never go back. 



25 



26 THE LIFE- WAY. 

There are those in the ^vorld, who, living too fast, 
Have never an eye for the lesson-full past, 
But in reaching beyond and peering away, 
They trample the bloom that environs to-day, 
And suffer with hope, and out of their sorrow 
They rush to the ultimate pang of to-morrow. 

The pleasures we seek and the jewels we find 

Are never before, but are ever behind ; 

And carelessly, heedlessly still do we pass 

The treasure-full things that go down in the glass ; 

For the greed of a greater thing urgeth us on 

'Til gem after gem in the life-sand is gone. 

Our moments are gold, and the shores of the Past 
From whence we have come on the journey too fast, 
Are sparkled with riches we never may reach, 
That lay in our way as we loitered the beach — 
When Hope went ahead with its promises sweet, 
We trampled Reality under our feet. 



IDEAL PRESENCE. 

As bees go over 

The seas of clover, 
So do my heart-wings go to my lover; 

And over the grades 

Of murmurous blades. 
And over the shimmer and over the shades, 

And airy and light 

As a fairy's flight, 
I follow the arc of the inner sight. 

Where a commerce moves 

In its iron grooves, 
May tarry the clay of the heart that loves ; 

But over the aisles 

Of the iron miles 
^lust hasten the eye to the eye that smiles ; 

To the jewel set 

In a minaret 
The track of its gleam is the truest yet. 

27 



THE EASTERN STAR. 



In Mason's Hall, with earnest eyes, 

Upon the Chart before me, 
I viewed the symboled mysteries 
That Masons keep and Masons prize 
I see the arm my brothers wield, 
Uplifted with its burnished shield. 
Let fall its shadow o'er me. 



My sisters true — in years agone — 

Beyond the waste of water 
I see them stand and beck me on : 
Sweet Ruth, the gleaner at the dawn ; 
Electa, dear, and Martha wait ; 
Queen Esther, in her robes of State ; 

And Jephtha's peerless daughter ! 



28 



THE EASTERy STAR. 29 

III. 
Judges, xi ; 35. 

" My father's vow, so fervent made, 

I would not have it broken! 
And though my palHd neck be laid 
All bare beneath the colder blade, 
I '11 give him still a steadfast eye 
And joy, \\\ hearing as I die, 

' Alas ! my daughter ! ' spoken. 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 
And 1 will break it never : 
I '11 trust in this^ and this^ and thiSy 

Forever and forever ! " 



IV. 1 

J 
KuTH ii : S- 

I 

The Master in the harvest days 1 

Shall find me gleaning early ; j 

The sun shall gild me with his rays * ] 
As I go down the reaper ways. 

And tho' He ask, 'Whose damsel's this?' j 

I know His great heart cannot miss •( 

These little hands of barley. ' 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight. 

And I will break it ne\ er : j 
I '11 trust in ////V, and this, and ////V, 

Forever and forever ! " ! 



30 



THE EASTERN STAR, 

V. 

Esther, v : 3. 

" I fearless go before the crown 
To move the thorns that fester ; 
And though the king himself may frown, 
And long to cut God's people down, 
I still have faith in such a day 
That he will smile and freely say, 

' What wilt thou, proud Queen Esther ? ' 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 

And I will break it never : 
I '11 trust in ////V, and this^ and this, 
Forever and forever ! " 



VI. 

John, xi : 26. 

" My fiiith in Christ no earthly hand 

Can ever move or sever : 
Go, take His tidings thro' the land 
With cymbals loud and trumpets grand ! 
For He shall say, ' Believest this ? ' 
And dead shall rise His feet to kiss 

Forever and forever ! 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight, 

And I will break it never : 
I '11 trust in ihis, and this, and this, 

Forever and forever ! " 



THE EASTERN STAR. 

VI r. 
2D Epis. John, ii : 5. 

Tho' rack and torture come to me — 

To husband, children, mother — 
Thro' Jesus' blood I yet shall see 
Some glimpses of eternity ; 
And far beyond the cross — the grave - 
There 's still a hand to bless and save 

For loving one another. 
In Heaven's sight my faith 1 plight, 

And I will break it never : 
I '11 trust in this^ and ihis^ and ////V, 

Forever and forever ! '' 



VI I r. 

In virtue's paths my way shall be, 

Where flowers bloom the rarest ; 
And all I know, and all I see, 
Shall mark a sister's truth in me. 
By yon bright star that shines above. 
My path I "11 keep, and try to prove, 

Among ten tJwiisand fairest. 
In Heaven's sight my faith I plight. 

And I will break it never ; 
[ '11 hope in t/iese., and these, and these ^ 

Forever and forever ! " 



31 



RETROSPECTION. 



Looking backward for the glory 

Of a gilded summer dawn, 
Down a weary waste of whiteness — 

Down a dreary winter kiwn ; 
Looking backward for the freshness 

Of a green and sapful June, 
Through the sombre brown and crimson 

Of an autumn afternoon ; 
Looking backward, down the shadow 

Of an iron-beaten way, 
Whence the armored Time came, silent, 

On this animate to day. 
O, it startles human reason, 

O, it withers human pride — 
Looking backward, ever backward. 

For the living things that died ; 
And the soul that seems immortal 

In the never-breaking gloom. 
Hath a presence at the portal 

Of the palace of the tomb. 



32 



DEAD FLOWERS 



Because I wore them for an liour 
Forever fresh to thee." 



The Rose-bud on thy bosom died — 

O, death, divhiely sweet — 
Whilst here a poet-heart hath sighed, 
To bear to thee its passion tide, 

And perish at thy feet. 

The Fuchsia withered on thy brow, 

Amidst thy shining hair; 
Whilst here a soul to earth would bow, 
And break its latest altar-vow 

For but one moment there. 

O, brow of pearl 1 O, breast of snow ! 

O, lips of love divine ! 
The bud hath caught their crimson glow, 
And borne thy pulse's tidal flow 

In purple life to mine. 

33 



A PIPE AFTER TEA. 

13RiX(r me a coal for my old clay pipe — 

A coal that is glowing and red, 

And draw up my chair 

To the fireside there, 

And hasten the children to bed : 

We have finished our task and finished our tea, 

And the evening prayer is said. 

Now place at the hearth a faggot or two, 
And carry the kettle away ; 
I'm thinking, my wife, 
Of the pleasure in life 
We have known this many a day ; 
For our hearts are warm and our spirits }0ung, 
Though our heads be turning gray. 

Ah, now you look, with your knitting, there, 
So cheerful and pleasant, my dear, 
That I feel, full well. 
My old heart swell 
As it did in its bridal gear, 
And I know it throbs as faithful still 
In the Autumn-time that's here. 



34 



A PIPE AFTER TEA. 

Come back with me to the early day, 
The Spring of our tender love, 
When a fair young bride, 
At the altar-side, 
Looked up to the Heaven above, 
And Gjd was nigh, and His Summer wind 
Sang joyous in the grove. 

Our fathers were there, our mothers too — 
We cherish the blessings they gave ; 

And tears must fall 

To know they 're all 
In the cold and silent grave, 

Where the slow years pass 

In the dropping glass, 
And willows o'er them wave. 



But all of us die, and day by day 
We pillow each other to sleep, 
And the tears may rise 
To our saddened eyes 
From the heart in its sorrow deep ; 
But God hath an eye to the sparrow's fall, 
And the humblest soul will keep. 

For two score years we have kept our faith, 
And true to our earliest tryst, 
We have found the goal 
Of a quiet soul, 



35 



36 -^ PIPE AFTEK TEA. 

That many a heart hath missed, 
And many a spirit hath wandered away 
To the tones we would not. list. 



Ah, wife, 1 feel my old blood course 
And tingle away in my veins, 
When I think how true 
Both I and you, 
Together, have guided the reins, 
With nothing on earth to mar our love. 
And fret and bother our brains. 



And here we sit, on this Winter night, 

A cozy and happy old pair, j 

And loving as true -j 

As we used to do \ 

When I was young and you were fair, i 

And the silver thread from the loom of years j 

Came not in vour raven hair. i 



I shake the coal from my old clay pipe, 
For now it is blackened and dead. 
And the faggot gone. 
And the fire wan, 
And the lamp-wick nearly lied, 
And the clock, with a nervous stroke, says ten ! 
And it's time to go to bed! 



U N D E R r H I^: P INKS 



Night, with her clustering, coronal stars, 

Over a world full of passions and wars j 

Her quieting wing has spread ; i 

There 's silence out in these mystical hills — ' 
There "s silence over the voiceful rills, 
And Earth, to all of its sorrowful thrills 

In the fever of day, is dead. 

i 

O, beautiful Night ! sweet season of dreams ! j 
Rich in thy glory and soft in thy gleams, 

How rapidly fleeting thou art ! ■ 

Throw over my spirit thy mantle of gold, j 

Let slumber and visions my bosom enfold, ■ 

Till all of thine eloquent moments are told \ 

In the silvery sands of my heart. 

i 

Out in the meadow are those who have died, ■ 

The stream running still fi'om the wound open wide — 

Oh, I sickened all day at the sight! j 

Alas ! for the heart of its idol denied ! : 

Alas ! for the vow of the groom to the bride I : 

He only may come to her tremulous side ! 

In the beautiful visions of Night ! ' 

I> 37 



SHE. 

O, COLD are the tlakes 

That fall in the lakes, 
And bitter the winds that be ; 

And icy and chill 

The minarets still 
That stand in the Polar Sea; 

But colder than all 
Of the flakes that fall, 

And the bitterest winds that be 
I'han the Mer de glace 
In the Northern Pass — 

Than the Pole itself — is she. 



In the amber light 

()f the sky, one night, 
1 tore my bosom apart, 

And under a moon 

Of the fervid June 
Was "offered" to her my heart; 

For I tore it out 
Of its red redoubt, 



38 



SHE. 

And laid it over the pyre, 
Where the torrid heat 
Of its fever-beat 

Went, soul to soul, with the hre. 

But never a stone 

To the chisel known 
So little of pulse betrayed, 

And the passion lines 

Of her outer signs 
Meant — never a word they said. 



O, the glacier stoop 

Of her shoulders' droop 
May show in the night like gold, 

And the lunar fleck 

On her marble neck 
A tinse of the blood mav hold : 



'to^ 



But never a drop 

Of the venous cup 
Can ever the lancet shed : 

The fever has flown — 

The woman is stone, 
And the sylph-like thing is dead. 



What the boddice robes 
For her ma 
Is onlv an icv 1 



For her mammal globes 



40 



SHE. 

'i'liough the lace may rest 
On her milk-white breast, 
A babe at the place would die ! 

For colder than all 
Of the flakes that fall, 

And the bitterest winds that be 
Than the Mer de glace 
In the Northern Pass — 

Than the Pole itself — is she! 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME 

Her whiter hand hiy lost in mine, 

The while she turned away 
To where the evening's flush of wine 

Went up the face of day — 
"When all these Autumn leaves aie shed, 

And I beyond the sea, 
You '11 not forget, O Love," I said, 
" The faith you 've plighted me ? " 

Her brown eyes, going outward far, 

Were silent in reply ; 
It seemed she thought some early star 

Would break the shadowed sky ; 
"When seeds of Spring are harvest grain, 

And leaves in purple be. 
You 11 not forget,"" I said again, 
" The faith you 've plighted me ? " 

And shadows thickened where we stood. 
And night came on apace ; 

D* 41 



42 



THE FAITH SHE FLIGHTED ME. 

I saw a tear — the heart's true blood- — 

Stand silent on her face 
" By these two hands at j^arting met, 

By sacred tears I see, 
I know, dear Love, you '11 not forget 

The faith you 've plighted me.' 

Then came her full-heart from her eyes, 

Turned, liquidly, to mine — 
" Did Eve forget her Paradise 

Beneath another vme '' 
No, no," she said, ** the waves may fling 

Then- whiteness on the sea, 
Nor time, nor tide, nor death shall bring 

Forgetfulness to me ! " 



I went where science, learning, art, 

Heaped memorable piles ; 
I felt the great world's pulsing heart 

Throb in the Flower Isles ; 
I saw the countless soulful eyes 

That sparkle in their dance, 
Beneath the rich Italian skies, 

The fruity hills of France ; 

The Scottish truth — the Irish grace — 
The Gemnan's frugal care — 



THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME. 

In every shape the human face, 

And beauty everywhere; 
And Summer and the Autumn came, 

And leaves were in their fall — 
I held her miage here the same, 

An idol over all. 



You mark the pale, proud woman there. 

Beneath the astral shine: 
Despite such blossoms in her hair 

Her heart should pulse to mint : 
I brought the sunset back tonight 

From far beyond the sea; 
I dared not think she held so light. 

The faith she plighted me 1 

I clutched the goblet as a vise, 

And pledged her thus in wine; 
May Eve forget her Paradise 

Beneath another vine ! 
And then I said, the waves may fling 

Their whiteness on the sea, 
Nor time, nor tide, nor death shall brmg 

Forgetfulness to me ! 



43 



O, friend ! I trust no siren tongue, 
No human voice or tears- 



14 THE FAITH SHE PLIGHTED ME. 

In all the world I dwelt among, 
No eye had truth like hers. 

I pass no more the blighted spot, 
No more the shadows see, 

Since she who loved so soon forgot 
The faith she plighted mel 



CHARITY. 



How mail}' proud people who gather to-day 
In chambers of pleasure, at feasts of display, 
Who quicken their lips in immaculate wine, 
With its typical foam and its sparkle divine, 
Have a pang at the heart, or a tear at the eye, 
For the woman in rags who is shivering by ? 

How many to-day in this legion of souls 

Who are tracing the pictures that glow in the coals, 

Who see in the future their temples arise 

As the wonderful homes unto worshipful eyes. 

Have pulses awake for the shadowy poor. 

Who, white as the marble, enphantom the door? 

How many, O God ! in Thy mercy and grace. 
Who are made in Thy form and are stamped with 
Thy face, 

45 



46 CHARITY. 

Who move on Thy footstool, and graciousl)^ live 
With light for Thy worship, with power to give, 
Have oil for the wounds of the man by the way, 
Or bread to be cast on the waters to-day ? 



O, people whose chambers of crimson and gold 
Are astir with the lambs of your own little fold, 
Whose feet in their frolic just dimple the bed 
Of the burying velvet the little ones tread. 
Be still for a season, just hearken the moans 
Of the poor little feet that are bare on the stones ! 



O, people who banquet, and revel, and laugh 
In the blood of the grape and the fat of the calf; 
When dwelling in plenty and swelling in pride 
Your children are petted, and pampered, and plied, 
Throw open your casements, and look at the brood 
Just over the way, who are crying for food ! 

O, people in coaches, with liveried things 
That wait in the glitter of tinsel and rings. 
That come at your becking and go at your will — 
All creatures of Mammon— God's images still! — 
Sink back in your cushions and hide you in shame 
From the piteous eyes of the paupered and lame ! 

O, mistress of fashion ! O, master of gold ! 

Far hidden in furs from the sting of the cold — 

As your spirits go out and your ecstasy swells 



CHARITY. 47 

At \\\(i sight of the snow and the sound of the bells, 
Do you mind that the widow is wanting a cloak — 
That her chimney is bleak in a city of smoke ? 



Come out of your casings, O, armor-clad souls, 
That live in the tinkle of ewers and bowls ; 
Come out from the sight of your carpeted feet 
With pity for those that are bare in the street : 
Come, open your coffers, in mercy, to-day. 
For the little ones crying just over the way ! 

Step out of your coaches and cutters, O, fools 
That sneer at the wretches that dwell in the pools ; 
Step out, and for once in the bountiful year 
Have eyes that can see and have ears that can 

hear; 
Step out from your cushions of revel and shame — 
Go comfort the widow, go pity the lame ! 

O, there 's nothing at all in this region below 
So hollow and dead as their tinsel and show ; 
When people who shimmer in glory and gold 
Are blind to the beings that dwell in the cold ; 
When lights from their windows, that dazzle the 

poor. 
See most of true virtue outside of the door ! 

O, blessings for people, who, feasting to-day. 
Have thought of the little ones over the wav ; 



48 CHARITY. 

Whose spirits, grown large at the board and the 

hearth, 
Cry welcome, to all the distressed of the earth ! 
O, blessings for people, who, hearing their moans, 
Have lifted the bare-footed out of the stones ! 



SEVENTY. 

The sad Sixty-nine in the midnight has gone, 

And Seventy comes in his chariot on ; 

With light in his eye and a flush in his face, 

He enters the course and is in for the race. 

A fever of being, a fullness of joy 

Is throbbing the pulse of the animate boy. 

"Tis a glorious hope that his spirit reveals 

In the crack of his whip and the rush of his wheel. 



But life is a mockery — common decay 

Is big in the womb of the promising day ; 

For death hath a touch at the heart of the corn 

Ere light on the silk of its tassel is born ; 

And never a flower abandons the dust 

But foldeth a germ of the cankering rust ; 

And even the beautiful, bountiful year 

That cometh to-day in its infancy here, 

Is typed in the life of ephemeral bloom. 

For he driveth his chariot on to the tomb. 

E 49 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 

Lv the glow of a purple October — 

The nut-dropping time of the year — - 
When leaves have a rustle of splendor 

And branches in silver appear, 
As Cometh the sun to the Sabbath, 

Up out of the Orient hills, 
A sense of an Infinite Being 

The whole of humanity fills. 

Man seers in the passage of seasons, 

The regular transit of days, 
How great is Thy goodness, Jehovah ! 

How wondrous, O God, are Thy ways ! 
The steeple-bells over the churches 

That dot, in their whiteness, the land. 
Elate at the glad Sabbath morning, 

Ring out in a symphony grand ; 
And homes that are sprinkled with children 

A story of happiness tells, 



50 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. ^^ 

When faces grow, bright at the music 

That flows from the Sabbath School bells. 



Now out of the lane and the by-way, 

And out of the alley and street, 
\\'ith murmurous mingle of voices 

And musical patter of feet, 
The children of all of the people — 

The humble in state and the high, 
The rich in their Astrachan wrappings, 

The poor in their woolen — go by. 



And in at the arch of the chapel, 

Along in the sanctified aisles, 
They gather like earliest blossoms 

That Spring in her beauty beguiles ; 
And there, at the foot of the altar — 

A ground that is a'cn at last — 
The hearts of the children are measured 

By Heaven's true standard of caste. 

The bells of the Sabbath are ringing 

Alike for the rich and the poor. 
And open the mine of the Bible 

To all who are seeking its store : 
No prince at the zenith of power. 

With nations on suppliant knees, 
Hath gems in his coronal decking 

That sparkle in fervor like these. 



52 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 

Come hither, O children, and gather 

The jewels God scatters to-day ; 
Here 's Honor, and Virtue, and Mercy, 

The riches that never decay ; 
Here 's knowledge that 's free to the orphan, 

The child of the widow may learn — 
The prince and the pauper together 

Mav in at the vestibule turn. 



Come, children, glad-eyed and white-heartec! 

And join in an anthem of praise ; 
Thank God for the voice in the steeple 

That heralds His holiest days ; 
Thank God for the boon of the Bible, 

The blessed Redeemer of men, 
The glorious plan of salvation 

Revealed in the beautiful Ten. 



Away w^ith sectarian uses, 

The narrow confinements of creed ; 
The little one's heart is a garden 

Where Jesus should scatter the seed. 
Teach God as a merciful Father, 

The source and the fountain of love ; 
Not feared for His might, and the power 

He wields in the kingdom above. 
But honored and glorified ever 

For Charity, Mercy, and Love, 
The jewels to seek in the Bible 

And wear to the kinadom above. 



SABBATH SCHOOL BELLS. 



53 



These grey-bearded men of the city, 

Worn out in the service of trade, 
Their foot-way, borne down from the sunHght, 

Is bent to the valley of shade ; 
And stories of struggle and sorrow 

The lines in their faces can tell. 
Since light-hearted children together 

Thev answered the Sabbath School bell. 



And often and often at midnight 

Their memory goes to the past, 
To wander again in the flowers 

That God in their passage had cast \ 
And up from the glory of childhood, 

In mystical melody swells 
A sound that endureth forever — 

The song of the Sabbath Day bells. 



TYPE AND TIME. 



That stern old man, the Harvester. 

Who garners in the years, 
Whose passage up the fields of space 

A path of death appears ; 
Whose way is in the early grain 

Ere yet its golden hue, 
And bended head, and parting husk, 

Invite the sickle through ; 

That cold old man, whose arteries, 

At Mercy's plaint, congea^ 
And harden, that they may but ishow 

The blood's organic steel — 
He feels no pity, knows no shame, 

Nor spares nor passes o'er 
An atom in the widening plain 

That, trackless, lies before. 

He turns not back, but onward still, 
With steady, tireless sweep. 



54 



TYPE AXD TIME. 55 

His burnished scytlie goes through the reahn 

Forevermore to reap ; 
No Ruth of Moab in his wake 

With tender hands may glean, 
Nor stem nor stalk shall stand for her 

Where iron Time has been. 



But stolid eye and tuneless ear 

Shall quicken at a sound 
That floats above the reaper sphere, 

And spurns the harvest-ground ; 
For Time shall note, beyond the dust 

Of men and nations wrecked, 
The stately tread of Genius, 

And the march of Intellect. 



Whoso hath marked the lives of men. 

Their better words and deeds, 
May point some flower blossoming 

Above the trammel weeds ; 
Some growth hath struggled out the arms 

That undertwine the way. 
And lifts its scented splendor 

In the ardent upper day. 



Though blight and blast may fell the stall 

In seasons urging by, 
The essence of the flower still 

Is tloatin<r on the skv ; 



56 



TYPE AND TIME. 

And free, beyond the reach of death, 

Upon the arch sublime, 
The souls of men of Intellect 

And Genius conquer Time. 

Go back along the shadow-days, 

And down their cycles run, 
And mark the lights from human lives 

Since human lives begun : 
Though countless legions in the throng 

Were stars that early set. 
The grand old planets of the past 

Are at the zenith yet. 



From out the darkness of an age 

That gave their genius birth. 
They rose above the atmosphere 

And battled down the earth ; 
And in the space, from every clime. 

And every class, are some 
Who prove how under-gravity 

Is grandly overcome. 



So let us live, and act, and be, 
That after-time may tell 

We were not in the reaper-way, 
Nor by the sickle fell ; 

But upward, over all that die, 
By force of human will, 



TYPE AND TIME. 

\\^e cut a passage to the sky 
And hold the cether still. 



On those \vho gather here to-day, 

Some lights, that ever show, 
Have come to shed their glory-ray 

From out the long-ago : 
The first old masters of an Art, 

Ere Genius yet was ripe, 
Who threw the cruder stylus down 

To greet the coming Type ; 

\<\\o from the cells of hooded monks, 

And sacrist scribes, and clerks, 
Were free to bear the outer world 

The magic of their works ; 
Who tore the vail of mystery 

From small Khorassans then 
That swayed the world with vellum scraps 

Of wisdom from the pen. 

'J'he German Koster, first of all, 

Whose carven letters came 
And gave the acts of noble men 

To glory and to fame ; 
Wliose spirit, from the narrow groove 

That circumscribed his kind, 
Was bold to break the barrier 

And poach the fields of mind. 



57 



58 TYPE AND TIME. 

The common cliain that ignorance 

And superstition bound, 
His light ambition scorned to wear 

Upon the trodden ground ; 
And men were taught forevermore 

That better path to chmb, 
When KusTER sent the Bible up 

The avenues of Time. 



Though long ago his parchment sheets, 

And vellum scrolls, and leaves 
Were gathered by the Harvester 

And lie among the sheaves, 
We lift the science of his thought 

From out the rubbish lost. 
With honor to old Guttenberg 

And gratitude to Faust. 

Where'er the cunning Type is known — 

Where'er the magic page 
Is stamped with living characters 

That photograph the age. 
The massive forms of Guttenberg, 

Of Faust, and Schceffer too, 
Shall stalk the aisles of learning 

And the paths of genius through. 

These are the planet-stars that shine 
For those who follow still 



TYPE AND TIME. 

The science-way that leaves the vale 
And takes the stubborn hill ; 

These are the patron-saints — the gods 
Of energy and worth, 

That point us from Apprenticeship 
To Mastery on earth. 

And down the sparkled arch that bends 

Above these darker years, 
We hail the risen splendor 

Of our later pioneers ; 
The noble Franklin of our own. 

Whose hand of usefulness 
Was first to clutch the thunderbolt 

And draw the lever-press. 

The simple beauty of his life — 

The smooth and even pace 
With which he took the upper way 

And won the honor race. 
Have left, through reaching history 

And ever-ringing fame, 
The civil world electrified 

And nervous with his name. 



We hold the greatness of his brain, 

His openness and truth. 
The highest model for our men. 

The noblest for our vouth ; 



59 



6o TYPE AND TIME. 

The brawn-armed daily laborer — 
The ermined of the State 

May find, in Franklin's excellence, 
A life to tmulate. 



And after him, above the verge, 

Our firmament can show 
The advent of another star — 

The scintillating Hoe ! 
The hot sheets from his cylinders 

O'er all the land are spread. 
To tell the world how Intellect 

And Genius are not dead. 



White-winged and free, across the sea 

His seeds of labor fly. 
And men must know, where'er they go, 

How Genius cannot die ; 
For all the soil of fertile brains 

With labor-seeds are rife — 
They germinate in fields of fame. 

And in the sands of life. 



As long as Christian temples bear 
'J'heir turrets to the sun — 

As long as in our cycle -lives 
The sands of Fame shall run. 

So long shall human hearts be glad, 
And human voices bless 



TYPE AND TIME. 6i 



The master-hands that wrought the Type 
And reared the magic Press. 



For us, who stand as Signal-men, 

x\long the army track, 
And onward wa\'e the messages, 

From flags that lessen back. 
How meet it is that arm, and eye, 

Should steady be, and true, 
To guard the honor of the post. 

And speed the signal through. 

We hold the symbol of a cause, 

A power in our hands, 
To point the army-march, and shape 

The destiny of lands ; 
To good, or ill, we guide the world. 

By virtue of our trust — 
For good, we lift the signal high — 

For ill, it trails the dust. 

When, here and there, a veteran 

And leader in the corps. 
Is signalled from the angel flags 

That flit the silent shore, 
He musters out of human strife. 

And treads the courts of fate — 
Our Harney's through the vestibule. 

Our Prentice at the gate. 



62 TYPE AND TIME. 

God keep us in the goodly track, 

That leaves the ill behind ! 
God turn us to the flower-way 

Of love for humankind ! 
God give us grace to wield the Pen, 

And so direct the Press, 
That we may point our fellow-men, 

To ever-blessedness ! 



And Time may keep his steady sweep 

Throughout the fields of earth, 
And in the maze of autumn days 

May fell the latest birth ; 
But human souls have higher goals, 

Where reapers never dare, 
And men shall rise beyond the skies, 

To shine forever there. 



SWEETHEART. 

Sweetheart — I call you sweetheart still 

As in your window's laced recess. 
When both oiu" eyes were wont to fill, 

One year ago, with tenderness. 
I call you sweetheart by the law 

Which gives me higher right to feel, 
Though I be here in Malaga, 

And you in far Mobile. 

1 mind me when, along the bay 

The moon-beams slanted all the night ; 
When on my breast your dark locks lay, 

And in my hand, your hand so white ; 
This scene the summer night-time saw. 

And my soul took its warm anneal 
And bore it here to Malaga 

From beautiful Mobile. 

The still and white magnolia grove 
Brought winged odors to your cheek. 

6-s 



64 



SWEETHEART. 

Where my lips seared the burning love 
They could not frame the words to speak 

Sweetheart, you were not ice to thaw ; 
Your breast was neither stone nor steel ; 

I count to-night, at Malaga, 
Its throbbinofs at Mobile. 



What matter if you bid me now 

To go my way for others' sake? 
W^is not my love-seal on your brow 

For death, and not for days to break? 
Sweetheart, our trothing holds no flaw ; 

There was no crime and no conceal, 
I clasp you here in Malaga, 

As erst in sweet Mobile. 

I see the bay-road, white with shells, 

I hear the beach make low refrain, 
The stars lie flecked like asphodels 

Upon the green, wide water-plain — 
These silent things as magnets draw, 

They bear me hence, with rushing keel 
A thousand miles from Malaga, 

To matchless, fair Mobile. 

Sweetheart, there is no sea so wide, 
No time in life, nor tide to flow. 

Can rob my breast of that one bride 
It held so close a year ago. 



SWEETHEART. 5- 



I see again the bay we saw ; 

I hear again your sigh's reveal, 
I keep the fjaith at Malaga 

I plighted at Mobile. 



TYPES OF LIFE. 



I SAW a star fall from its home 

In Heaven's blue and boundless dome, 

To gleam no more ; 
I saw a wave with snowy crest 
Thrown from the Ocean's stormy brea-t, 

Upon the shore. 



I saw a rose of perfect bloom 
Bend, fading to its wintry tomb 

In silent grief; 
I saw a living oak, but now. 
Touched by the storm, with shattered bough 

And withered leaf 



The star had shone tnro' countless yea 
And shed its rays like virgin tears, 

So pure and bright, 
'I'hat earth scarce knew the hol\- thrall, 
And only sighed to see it fall 



And fade in night. 



66 



TYPES OF LIFE. 

The wave li.id wandered to and fro, 
With Ocean's ebb and Ocean's flow, 

From pole to pole, 
Till here upon the nameless strand 
It sank beneath the thirsty sand, 

Its final goal ! 

The rose sprang from a fallen seed, 
And smiled above the graceless weed, 

To greet the sun. ; 
But 'neath the Winter's chilling breath. 
The lovely flow'rets' race to death 

Was quickly run. 

The living oak, with noble shade. 
Had stood the monarch of the glade, 

Thro' ages long ; 
But rifted by the lightning's glare, 
PI is sturdy arms grew brown and bare, 

And were not strons:. 



And these are types of human lives ; 
Man lives a little while and thrives, 

But withers fast. 
He sees a thousand lovely gleams, 
But wastes his life away in dreams, 

And falls at last. 



67 



THE PATH 



Just by the road we are journeying fast, 

Down to the Lake of Tears, 
A blind old man has tottered at hist, 
Out of the Present into the Past, 
Over the brink of years. 



What were his virtues, what were his crimes, 

Nobody cares to-day ; 
Once he was ours — now he is Time's — 
For Hves are but as murmuring chimes, 

Coming and going away. 



Up on the hill there 's a patter of feet 

A voice in the flowers wild ; 
Carelessly down to the busy street, 
Many to pass, and many to meet, 

Rambles a little child. 
68 



THE PATH. 69 

This is "the dead man's son and heir" 

Coming along the road ; 
He gathers the lightest treasures there, 
The violet bloom and crocus fair, 

Bearing a childish load. 

Soon he will be in the hurrying crowd. 

Pushing his way ahead — 
Some of them broken — some of them bowed. 
Some for the altar and some for the shroud, 

Some who are leadinjr and led. 



Soon ir_ tne way to the Lake of Tears, 

The little one's feet must go ; 
For thorns are thick in the path of years, 
And the ^^^av to death is a way of fears, 
All down to the silent flow. 



THE BIVOUAC. 

A SOLDIER lay on the frozen ground. 
With only a blanket tightened around 

His weaiy and wasted frame ; 
Down at his feet, the fitful light 
Of fading coals in the freezing night 
Fell as a mockery on the sight, 

A heatless, purple flame. 

All day long, with his heavy load, 
Weary and sore, in the mountain road, 

And over the desolate plain ; 
All day long, through the crusted mud, 
Over the snow, and through the flood, 
Marking his way with a track of blood 

He followed the winding train. 

Nothing to eat at the bivouac 

But a frozen crust in his haversack — 

70 



THE PTVOUAC. yi 

The half of a comrade's store — - 
A crust, that, after a long^er fast, 
Some pampered spaniel might have passed, 
Knowing that morsel to be the last 

That lay at his master's door. 

No other sound on his slumber fell 

Than the lonesome tread of the sentinel — 

That equal, measured pace — 
And the wind that came from the cracking pme^ 
And the dying oak, and the swinging vine. 
In many a weary, weary line, 

To his pale and hollow face. 

But the soldier slept, and his dreams were l^right 
As the rosy glow of his bridal-night, 

With the angel on his breast ; 
For he passed away from the wintry gloom 
To the softened light of a distant room, 
Where a cat sat purring upon the loom. 

And his wearv heart was blest. 



His children came, two blue-eyed girls. 
With laughing lips and sunny curls. 

And cheeks of ruddy glow ; 
And the mother pale, but lovely now, 
As when, upon her virgin brow 
He proudly sealed his early vow, 

In summer, long: ao:o. 



5 THE BIVOUAC. 

But the reirille wild^ in the morning gray, 
Startled the beautiful vision away, 

As a frightened bird in the night ; 
And it seemed to the soldier's misty brain 
But the shrill tattoo that sounded again, 
And he turned with a dull, uneasy pain, 

To the camp-fires' dying light. 



HEART LESSONS. 

I H-iD no design in passing — 
I was walking rather late — 

I did not dream that Rosa Gray 
Was standing at the gate ; 

And when the cloud passed over, 
And the moon revealed her there, 

With its ripple o.n her bosom 
And its shimmer in her hair, 

I was startled at the glory 
And the suddenness of light, 

That had silvered up the arches 
Over all the aisles of night. 

I had kept my passion hidden ; 

I had held it deathly still 
Through the vigor of my manhood, 

Through the power of my will. 

G 



73 



^4 Heart lessons. 

Oh, the pride in being master ! 

Oh, the dread of being slave ! 
Better wear the crimson fever 

In a by-way to the grave. 



Better hold it — hide it downward, 
Though the fibrous, vital man 

From the inner heat's expansion 
Into baser metal ran. 



Better feel the slowest fusion 
Of the being's finer parts, 

Than to show the garish colors 
And the flame of common hearts. 



But this sudden, white appearance 

At the gate of Rosa Grav, 
Drove my real nature backward — 

Drove my stronger self away. 

Standing, queenly, where the moon-glow 
Brought its finish to her cheek, 

Where the star-eyes saw her breast-swells 
At the boddice-margin break. 

Some entire unknown sensation, 
From the heart's entangled wild, 

Broke amain upon my life-strings, 
And o'crswept me as a child. 



HEART LESSONS. ^5 

She was looking far to seaward, 

And her outline shone so clear 
That she seemed a chiseled Silence, 

Cut from silver, leanino; there. 



And the near Egyptian Lily, 

Bending from its marble vase. 
Might be fairer for her whiteness. 



Might be rarer for her grace. 



She was looking far to seaward, 
And the moon-path, silver laid, 

For the passage of her vision 
To the outer world, was made. 

She was lost in dreamy poems 

To the ever xerseful sea, 
And the dimmest stars were nearer 

Than her soul was unto me. 

I approached her like a coward ; 

For the under-lying dew 
Scarcely sparkled at my foot-fall 

In its noiseless passage through. 

Rosa Orav," I said, and touched her 
From her meditative sleep — 

What of all this coral labor : 
Will it overcome the deep .'' 



76 HEART LESSONS. 

" Mark you yonder reef, unbroken 

Through the foam-line of its length 
Has this boundless spread of water, 
Or the insect, greater strength ? 



Mark you how the brine beats ever 
Up the still and steadfast wall : 

Do the spray-drops gather marble, 
That they whiten as they fall? 

There are grottos, arches, towers. 
Cities, islands building on : 

Will not Time proclaim a triumph 
When the Ocean shall be gone ? 

Come, now, Rosa Gray, and listen : 
Once my heart was all a sea, 

And the thought-ships furrowed o'er it, 
Bringing treasures unto me ; 

Fair white sails from isles of learning. 
Bringing knowledge unto me ; 

I was master of its commerce, 
I was monarch of the sea. 

I could feel the waves go outward. 
And the wind-share cutting free 

Through the white-enameled furrows 
Of mv great, expanding sea. 



HEART LESSONS. 

* You began your labor early 

In my heart-deeps, Rosa Gray, 
And my ships, and waves, and ocean, 
Long ago ha\e passed away. 

' So you fill me now, and sway me, 
With the cunning of your skill ; 
I have neither force nor reason, 
I have neither way nor will. 

' Speak me truthful words, O mistress i 
In this fever of my mood ; 
Let my heart-valves force the chalice, 
Be it poison, down my blood ! " 

You have seen a twig inclining, 
Where, the liquid crystal found, 

Kept the murmur of its music 
In the alleys underground ; 

So I thought to find her spirit, 
So I sought to catch her tone, 

Where the magic of my circle 
Was the compass of her zone. 

And Rosa Gray looked outward 
Once again toward the waves, 

And her eyes came o'er with pity 
As the dews come over leaves ; 
(J* 



77 



78 HEART LESSONS. 

And my own eyes burning in them, 
Burning, through the glassy flow, 

Saw her real being shrinking 
In the darkness far below. 



Little need for her to utter, 
Little need for her to move — 

Friend, I came not in the margin 
Of the shadow of her love. 

Mark you, now, I "m looking backward, 
Somewhat further than it seems, 

Where the real things that met us 
Take the portraiture of dreams. 

There was no design in passing — 
I repeat here what I said — 

I but followed where the genius 
Of my meditation led. 

It was well I came upon her 

In that mystic, latter noon, 
When my heart ga\-e off its burthen 

As the cloud went off the moon. 



It was well to yield my purpose 
To the sway of impulse then ; 

It was well to bring my greatness 
To the plane of common men. 



HEART LESSONS. 

It was meet that I, a beggar, 
Trailing ermine as a king, 

In her real, regal presence 

Should appear the lower thing. 

What is human pride and purpose 
But a passion at the most ? 

Men are haunted through ambiHon, 
And their vanity 's the o:host. 



For the lessons and the knowledge 
That she gave me, Rosa Grav, 

I would cast the garnered learning 
Of a former life away. 



And I mind me often, often, 
In my wanderings of late. 

Of the figure standing silent 
In the halo at the gate. 

And I tread the pathway backward, 
To that mystic, latter noon, 

When my heart ga\'e off its burthen 
As the cloud went off the moon. 



79 



TIME AT THE SOUTH. 

In the shade of the pool, where the queen-lily dips, 
With the dew of the night on her beautiful lips : 

Where blossoms the orange, where bloometh the rose. 
And the bright oleander and jessamine blows \ 

Tread lightly, tread softly, O merciful Time, 

O'er the land of the sun, and the lemon, and lime ; 

For leaves of the flowers so faded and strewn 
Were fair in the morning and fallen at noon. 

Go back to the plane of your ice-hidden lakes — 
Go back with your breath of the frost and the flakes ; 

Go Northward, O season of Winter and gloom, 
From the emerald South and its odorous bloom. 

O, the purple dead leaves that environ the ways 
Of the genius of Time in its passage of days ; 

O, the late-fallen leaves and the withering grass — 
How they rustle, and gather, and people the pass ! 
80 



TIME AT THE SOUTH. gj 

O, better to die and be hidden away, 

Than to live in the circle and sight of decay. 

Our metals of life in their crucibles run 

When the pulses are red in the glow of the sun. 

}3ut come to the South with the ice of your heel, 
And the channels are still and the currents congfeal. 

Go backward, O Winter, go back to the lakes, 
\\\\\\ your withering frost and 3'our wandering flakes. 

* 4^ # * :jt * 

The bush is borne down and the blossom is shed. 
And we gather to-day at the grave of the dead. 

The corse that is stark^ and the body that's cold, 
Is a link of the jDast to be lost in the mold ; 

And armies may file to the sepulchre plain 
To laurel the bier of the body that's slain ; 

Ikit never again, at the death of the years. 

Will the heart of the Southron be lavish of tears. 

Go seek in the fiir-reaching fields of his land. 
For the shade of liis column and capital grand ; 

Go look for the mosque of his worship and pride ; 
Go look for his brother — go look for his bride ; 

(jO look for all things he has cherished and lo\ed — 
The garden he haunted, the valley he roved — 



82 TIME AT THE SOUTH, 

And .the desolate track, and the ravens that fly, 
Will tell that the fount of the Southron is dry. 

Time was, when a sentinel stood at the gate, 
And guarded the annals and altars of state ; 

When the gleam of his eye and the glare of his blade 
Kept the wolf in the covert afar and afraid ; 

When the good and the pure, and the noble and true, 
A\'ere all in the land that the sentinel knew : 

Time was when the tyrant would blanch in the sight 
Of the column and arch of our temple of right, 

A\'hen the marbles of state in their purity stood. 
That our f;ithers had builded and hallowed in blood , 

But time is long gone with the sands of the glass, 
\Mien honor was watchword, and I'irtiic the pass. 

Go banish the dust from your lexicons old, 
Ye people that glitter and seek to be gold ; 

Go back to the schools of your earlier days. 
For their lessons of truth, and their patriot lays , 

Go study the greatness, that tried in the fires. 
Shone bright in the glory that covered your sires ; 

Go feel in the spell that encircles their graves 
That tvrants and cowards are meaner than slaves. 



TIME AT THE SOUTH, <^2, 

Oh, men of the nation — oh, rulers and kings, 

Do ye know that your riches and powers have wings ? 

Do ye know that the ashes ye scatter and spurn, 
Must quicken in time and arise from the urn ? 

Do ye know that the gates where ye gather your tolls, 
Are peopled with things that have pulses and souls ? 

Do ye dare, from your source in the dubt and the clods, 
To covet the robes and the thrones of the gods ? 

Ye may look at the waves that go out on the sea, 
And learn from the past what your future will be ; 

For the ocean is broad, and the wave in its track. 
Must follow, and follow, and never come back. 

Ye are like to the waves that are gathered and tost, 
And driven to sea, to be scattered and lost — 

In the morn, ere the scent of the roses is o'er, 

Ye may sleep in the cove and the calm of the shore \ 

Ye may toy in the isles at the mellower noon, 
With your feathery spray and its murmurous tune ; 

But evening must come from the shadow at last, 
With a garment of gloom and a gathering blast. 



DOUBLE LIFE. 

Over pools of purest water, 

Lying silent, there will come, 
Soon, or late, the green enamel 

Of a quickened herbage-scum ; 
Taking color from the vesture 

That the margin grasses wear, 
Till it hides the lambent sparkle 

Of the liquid crystal there. 

So the poet-nature shadows 

All its glory with a cloud, 
That the soul-light may not dazzle 

In the ordinary crowd; 
So they hide their real beings. 

So they live and act a part, 
Making nature but an adjunct 

To the perfectness of art. 

Oh, I hate this outward seeming. 
This unreal, double-life, 



84 



DOUBLE LIFE. 85 

Where the face is full of quiet 
While the heart is full of strife ; 

For our latent inner-currents 
Would to other currents run, 

Though the waters of the spirit 
Mav be hidden from the sun. 



We may live upon the surface, 
We mav wear the mantle sreen 



And among the outer beings, 
Be as outer beings seen ; 

But the spheres of souls magnetic 
Are beyond the common thrall, 

And the true life of the poet 
Pulseth under, after all. 



giccu, i 



THE LITTLE BOY GUIDING THE PLOW. 

When a bugle-note rang in the quivering trees, 

And a drum beat the nation to arms, 
Our people came up from the shore of the seas, 

And away from their blue-mountain farms ; 
All stalwart and strong as the hardy old pines. 

Or the wave-breaking rocks of the shore. 
They came in their long gleaming columns and lines, 

Till the bugle-note sounded no more. 
There are hearts in the ranks, as light as the foam; 

There are those of a gloomier brow ; 
And some who have left but a mother at home. 

With her little boy guiding the plow. 

There are silver-haired men the tide in their veins 

Leaping down the red nleys of youth, 
All fresh as the water-fall thrown to the plains, 

And as pure as the beautiful truth ; 
There are sons too, and sires — the old and the 
young — 
In the midnight and morning of life, 
86 



THE L.TTLE BOY GCJDIXG TJIE PLOW. 87 

Who came from the hills and the ^•aIleys among, 

To be first in the glorious strife ; 
And many, how many beneath the blue dome, 

Are bending in solitude now, 
To plead for the weal of a mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow ! 



Oh, the iiang of his heart, and the keenest of all 

That a wandering father may know. 
Is the vision of home with its agony-call, 

Its hunger and shivering woe ; 
And \vho would not chafe in the sacredest chain 

At a memory bitter as this, 
Though he knew in his heart that each moment of 
pain 

Would but hallow his future to bliss ? 
And who would not weep in a vision of gloom. 

When the Evil One whispered him how 
The toil grew apace to the mother at home. 

And her little boy guiding the plow ? 



But courage, keep courage, oh, parent away ! 

Be noble, and f^iithful, and brave ! 
And the midnight shall pass, and the glorious day 

Shall be shed over tyranny's grave I 
Though a desolate thing is a fenceless f^irm. 

And as dreary, a furrowless field, 
Still, God in his mercy shall strengthen the arm 

Of the little boy asking a yield ; 



8S THE LITTLE BOY GUIDING THE PLOW. 

And the stabbornest clay shall be as the loam, 

When the patriot spirit shall bow, 
And ask for a friend to the mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow. 

Oh, God will be kind to the needy and poor 

Who shall suffer from tyranny's hand ; 
His foot-print shall be by the loneliest door, 

And his bounty shall cover the land ; 
And broken the glebe in the valley and mead, 

Where the poorest and weakest shall be. 
And plenty shall spring of the promising seed, 

Till a people shall live to be free ; 
And never, oh, never shall tyranny come, 

With iron-bound bosom and brow — 
May God give him back to the mother at home, 

And her little boy guiding the plow ! 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

From the fields that underlie us, 

Down the flowered South's incline, 
Where the vintage of the battles 

Took a deeper glow than wine ; 
When the early green of summer, 

Winning out the smitten gaze, 
Caught, from war, a sudden crimson, 

As of later autumn days ; 
Where the tangled, trodden grasses, 

And the fragment blades and shells, 
All the story of the struggle, 

More than eloquently tells ; 

From the salients and the centres. 

And the points of jealous guard, 
Where the trees and earth with missiles 

Bearing death were deepest scarred ; 
Where the tempered blade was needed, 

And the gallant arm to wield, 
For the honor and the glory 

And the guidance of the field ; 



89 



90 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

In the surge and edge of carnage, 

In the battle's tidal flow, 
At the focus of the conflict, 

At the colors of the foe — 
There we sought, and there we found them 

In the clotted field and fen — 
Found the relics, and the shadows, 

Of our grand and god-like men. 



Meet it is, oh widow — mother ! — 
From this sweet, prolific May, 

Thus to bear its living garlands 
Through the winter of your way. 

Meet it is, O men and brothers ! 

Here amid the fallen great, 
These to glorify and honor 

As the noblest of your State. 

In the shadow of a column, 

Bearing upward to the day. 
Yonder carven marble semblance 

Of the ever-living Clay, 
Well it is that they should slumber 

Who, beneath his power-tone. 
From the cradle-time of being, 

Into patriots had grown ; 
Who were early taught his lessons, 

And to noble paths inclined 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

By his scorn of crawling spirits, 
And the narrow grooves of mind ; 

Who were taught the worth of freedom, 
And the glory of such graves 

As should come before the shackles, 
And the curse of being slaves. 



Bring your garlands here, O sister, 
For the brother who is free, 

Who to brutal pomp and power 
Never bent a servile knee. 

For the cause in which he suffered, 

And the hearth and home-lands gone. 
Yet his ashes lise in witness 

At the courts of after-dawn — 
Let his banner bear the record 

Of an impulse in his blade, 
When the red track down an army 

Told the havoc he had made. 

Such an even-handed justice 
As the nation's cannot move. 

There will be in that tribunal, 
At the golden bar above. 

Bring the rose and lily hither, 
And the May-time's early bloom ; 

Let us conquer now, with flowers, 
All the legions of the tomb ; 



91 



92 



THE FLOWER GRAVES. 

Let the green and living garlands 
Over all the mounds be shed, 

As a token that the heroes 
Underlying, are not dead. 

Keep them fresh, O eyes of beauty, 

With the moisture of your tears, 
That their souls may haunt the flowers 

Down your summer-way of years. 
Keep them fresh with darling kisses ; 

Let them feel your bosom-sigh, 
And the thousand years of glory 

Shall not see the Southrons die. 



FALLEN.. 

Thk iron voice from yonder spire 
Has hush'cl its hollow tone, 

And midnight finds me lying here. 
In silence and alone. 

The still moon through my window 
Sheds its soft light on the floor, 

With a melancholy paleness, 
I have never seen before ; 

And the summer wind comes to me 

With its sad ^olian lay, 
As if burthened with the sorrows 

Of a weary, weary day ; 

But the moonlight cannot soothe me 
Of the sickness here within, 

And the sad wind takes no portion 
From my bosom's weight of sin. 



93 



94 



FALLEN. 



Yet my heart and all its pulses 

Seem so quietly to rest, 
That I scarce can feel them beating 

In my arms, or in my breast : 



These rounded limbs are resting now 

So still upon the bed, 
That one would think, to see me here, 

That I was lying dead. 



What if 'twere so ? What if I died 

As I am lying now, 
With something like to virtue's calm 

Upon this pallid brow? 

What if I died to-night? Ah, now 
This heart begins to beat — 

A fallen wretch, like me, to pass 
From earth, so sadly sweet ! 

Yet am I calm ! — as calm as clouds 
That slowly float and form. 

To give their burthen-tears in some 
Unpitying winter storm ; 

As calm as great Sahara 

E'er the simoom sweeps its waste — 
As the ocean, e'er the billows 

All its miles of beach have laced. 



lULLEM. 



95 



Still, stillj I have no tears to shed ; ' 

These eye-lids have no store — ' 

The fountain once within me, [ 

A fountain is no more. \ 



The noon alone looks on me now. 
The pale and dreamful moon ; 

She smiles upon my wretchedness. 
Through all the night's sweet noon. 



What if I died to-night — within 

These gilded, wretched walls, 
Upon whose crimson tapestry 

No eye of virtue falls. 

What would its soulless inmates do 
When they had found me here, 

With cheek too white for jDassion's smile. 
Too cold for passion's tear? 

Ah ! one would come, and from these arms 

Unclasp the bauble bands ; 
Another, wrench the jewels from 

Mv fairer, whiter hands. 



This splendid robe, another's form 
Would grace, oh, long before 

The tender moon-beam shed again 
Its silver on the floor. 



q6 fallen. 

And when they'd laid me down in earth 
\\1iere pauper graves are made. 

Beneath no drooping willow-tree 
In an^el-haunted shade. 



Who'd come and plant a living vine 

Upon a wretched grave? 
Who'd trim the tangled grasses wild 

No summer wind could wave? 



Who would raise a stone to mark it 

From ruder graves around, 
'J 'hat the foot-fall of the stranger 

Might be soft upon the ground? 

No stone would stand above me there — 

No sadly bending tree, 
No hand would plant a myrtle vine 

Above a wretch like me. 

What if I died to-night ! — and when 

To-morrow's sun had crept 
Where late the softer moonlight 

In its virgin beauty slept, 

They'd come and find me here — oh, who 

Would weep to see me dead? 
Who'd bend the knee of sorrow 

By a pulseless wanton's bed? 



FALLEN. 

There's one would come — my mother I 

God bless the angel band 
That bore her, ere her daughter fell. 

To yonder quiet land ! 

Thank God for all the anthem-songs 

That gladdened angels sung, 
When my mother went to heaven, 

And I was pure and young ! 

And there's another too would come — 

A man upon whose brow 
My shame hath brought the winter snow 

To rest so heavy now. 

Ah ! he would come with bitter tears 
All burning down his cheek, — 

Had reasoji's kingdom stronger been 
When virtue grew so weak ! 

My sisters and my brothers all. 

Thank God ! are far away ! 
They'll never know how died the one 

That mingled in their play ; 

They'll never know how wretchedly 

Their darling sister died. 
The one who smiled whene'er they smiled, 

Who cried whene'er they cried. 



07 



98 



FALLEN. 

For him that sought a spotless hand. 

And Hves to know my shame, 
In such a place I'd tear the tongue 

That dared to speak his name. 

The cold sea-waves run up the sand 

In undulating swells, 
And backward to the ocean turn 

When they have kissed the shells ; 

So, there's a torrent in my breast. 

And I can feel its flow 
Rush up in crimson billows 

On a beach as fair as snow; 

And backward, backward to my heart, 

The ocean takes its tide, 
My cheeks and lips left bloodless all, 

And cold, as if I died ! 

I'm all alone to-night! How strange 

That I should be alone ! 
This splendid chamber seems to want 

Some roue's passion-tone ! 

Yon soulless mirror, with its smooth 

And all untarnished face. 
Sees not these jewelled arms to-night, 

In their unchaste embrace — 



FALLEN. 

Oh, I have fled the fever 

Of that heated, crowded hall. 

Where I might claim the highest-born 
And noblest of them all ; 

Where I might smile upon them now 

With easy, wanton grace. 
Which subdues the blood of virtue 

That would struggle in my face. 

I hate them all — I scorn them. 
As they scorn me in the street ; 

I could spurn away the pressure 
That my lips too often meet ; 

I could trample on the lucre 

That their passion never spares : 

They robbed me of a heritage 
Of greater price than theirs. 

They can never give me back again 
What I have thrown away, 

The brightest jewel woman wears 
Throughout her little day ! 

The brightest, and the only one, 
That from the cluster riven. 

Shuts out forever woman's heart 
From all its hopes of Heaven ! 

l.cfC. 



99 



lOO 



FALLEN. 

What if I died to-night ? — and died 

As I am lying here ! 
There's many a green leaf withered 

Ere autumn comes to sear ; 

There's many a dew-drop shaken down 

Ere yet the sunshine came, 
And many a spark hath died before 

It wakened into flame. 

What if I died to-night, and left 
These wretched bonds of clay 

To seek beyond this hollow sphere 
A brighter, better day ? 

What if my soul passed out, and sought 

That haven of the blest 
'Where the wicked cease from troubling, 
The weary are at rest"? 

Would angels call me from above, 

And beckon me to come 
And joni them in their holy songs 

In that eternal home ? 



Would they clasp their hands in gladness 
When they saw my soul set free, 

And pomt-beside my mother's — 
To a place reserved for me ? 



FALLEN. loi 

VVould they meet me as a sister, 

As one of precious worth 
Who had gained a place in Heaven 

By holiness on earth? 

O God ! I would not have my soul 

Go out upon the air , 
With all its weight of wretchedness, 

To wander, where — oh, where? 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

Ho ! ye wno wait where sleeps in state 
The silent form of Sixty-Eight, 
Where from the shadows blue and far 
Has come his glinting taper-star, 
Where from the carboned upper dark 
The crystal scalings of its arc, 
In fitful, hither, thither ways. 
Are driven like the drifting days, — 
Now o'er the winter fields and fells 
Ye hear the sobbing Midnight Bells. 



Ho ! ye whose tears were shed on biers 
Of other gray and gathered years, 
\Miy weep ye now, and watch, and wait, 
]k>side the corse of Sixty-Eight? 
The widowed hills, the orphan vales, 
May give their anthem^ and their wails ; 
May wear their garb oi mourning white 
Along the pathways of ihe night, — 
But Ye! why heed ye now tlie knells? 
Why hearken still the Midnight Bells? 
102 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

The sunlight smiles through airy miles 
On fair and flowered summer isles, 
And earth in green and living things, 
So gladdened with its lightsome wings. 
Floats wanton where the odor-breeze 
Goes out the shining summer seas ; 
But winter from her secret caves 
Creeps darkling o'er the ocean waves, 
And sad and far from o'er the swells 
The bloom has heard its Midnight Bells. 

O men who know how sure and slow 
The tides of time must ebb and flow ; 
How one by one the waves must reach 
And bear their tribute from the beach. 
How sure the sands upon the lea 
Go outward to the central sea. 
And buried are in hollow grooves 
Where slow th' eternal current moves, — 
Why pause they where the sounding shells 
Bear echoes from the Midnight Bells ? 

The nations rise, and through the skies 
The clamor of their glory flies ; 
Their flaunting pennons out the gales 
Go with the sunlight and the sails. 
And spicy isles and frozen zones 
Their splendor and their power owns ; 
But deathless Time — eternal Time ! 
He heeds no king, he knows no clime ; 



103 



I04 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 

And over wars, their shouts, their yells, 
He peals the nations' Midnight Bells. 

The great, the grand, who gave the land 

Their crimson for its right to stand ; 

Who on their swords of valor brought 

Our right of action and of thought ; 

Who piled their way from kings and thrones 

With such a hecatomb of bones, — 

Their hearts are still, their forms are cold, 

Their very deeds beneath the mold. 

And scarce the country's record tells 

How we have heard their Midnight Bells. 



When tyrant knaves make freemen slaves, 
And tread the sod of sacred graves ; 
When in the darkness and the dust 
They give our sabres to the rust ; 
When in our cells no sound remains 
Above the voices of the chains ; 
When all but memory is dead. 
And Time alone hath ceaseless tread, — 
Oh, joy to know a chain foretells 
The clanking of their Midnight Bells ! 

For men whose souls amid the shoals 
Are fearless in the tidal rolls ; 
Who move with shackles on their arms 
As proudly in the face of storms 



MIDNIGHT BELLS. 105 

As they whose ermine drapes the gates 
Of conquered Empires, fallen States, — 
To them shall come no craven gloom, 
No haunting shadow of the tomb, 
No fear of death, no shrieking hells. 
When Freedom swings her Midnight Bells. 



The fairest stream that like a dream 
Goes down the land, a silver seam ; 
The stars that show their golden glow 
On things that slumber here below ; 
The waves, the sea, the earth, the sky. 
All things that live and all that die ; 
The great, the good, the weak, the strong. 
To Time Eternal all belong, 
And soon or late must come their knells 
From sad and solemn Midnight Bells. 

In virtue's way to endless day, 

Beyond the margin's reaching gray, 

Beyond the ether's thick'ning spread. 

Beyond the world, beyond the dead, — 

Let men, let nations cast their eyes 

Toward the opening Paradise, 

Till all the hopes and all the fears. 

Till all the chains and all the wars 

Are lost forever in the swells 

When Heaven tolls our Midnight Bells. 



AFTER THE WAR. 

We have filled with recollections 
All our calumets to-day, 

And from this clearer present 
Floats the cloudy past away. 

We have burned to finer ashes 
All the debris of the years, 

That so late amid the home-lands 
Brought us misery and tears. 

Farewell to all the memories 
That preyed upon our souls, 

That made us in our carnage-time 
A populace of ghouls. 

Farewell to every record-mark 

Of cruelties and crimes, 
And a welcome to the sunlight 
Of dawning better times. 
1 06 



AFTER THE WAR. 

Already from the havoc-fields 
^^'here rolled the battle-drums, 

The busy beat of hammers 
And the din of labor comes ; 

The plowshare in the sodden ground 

Its fruitful passage takes, 
And toil is in its triumph 

From the bayous to the lakes. 

O blessed land ! where swords are drawn 

To hew the armied grain. 
Where lines of corn are stricken down 

Upon the harvest plain ; 

Where every stalk beneath the stroke 

In golden beauty bows, 
And men are counted noble 

Who have sweat upon their brows. 

O blessed land ! O land of toil, 

And land of human love. 
There are pages of repentance 

In thy records up above ; 

And onward, onward through the days 

Of glory yet to come 
Shall march thy legion labor, 

Shall beat their anvil-drum. 



107 



lo8 AFTER TlIK WAR. 

Our sinews strong from North to South 
Are wrought of iron bands, 

And rivers wind Hke silvtr threads 
Adown our shining sands. 

Brave Progress with her certain pulse, 
Her mighty breatli of steam, 

Gots out in power on the earth, 
In glory on the stream. 

And Westward far, by plains a-bloom 
And mountains rich in ore, 

Our engines bear their burthens 
To the great Pacific shore. 

Our sails are white on all the seas, 
With gleaming tracks behind — 

At peace to-day with all the world ! 
Good-will to all mankind ! 



'J'hus much foi* all the nation 
As a grand majestic whole, 

Made up of smaller portions 
As our acts make up the soul. 



God hath trusted us with talents, 
Each and all of us a trust ; 

Howsoe'er we please to use them, 
He is merciful and iust. 



AFTER THE WAR. 109 

Let us do our share of labor, 

Let us toil and sweat to-day. 
Let us lift our burthened neighbor 

From his falling by the way. 

Every impulse of our kindness, 

Every act we do of love, 
Hath its record to our credit 

In the archives up above. 



By the broad and fair Ohio, 
In the rich lands of the West, 

We have builded up our mansions, 
Here to live and here to rest ; 

And the long grass waves in greenness 

Over plains and over hills, 
And the sunlight gives its shimmer.' 

To the ever-going rills. 

Land of Peace and land of Plenty \ 

Richer far than any yet : 
May thy rising sun of glory 

In the shadow never set ! 

Goodly arms and sturdy spirits 
Over all thy fields be spread ; 

Teach the children of thy people 
To be proud to earn their bread ! 
J 



no AFTER THE WAR. 

Never plowman trod the furrow 
Of a richer soil than ours, 

To a bosom more prolific 

Never came the summer showers ; 

Corn and wheat in rolling billows 
Flood the acres with their gold, 

And the strata spreading under 
Have a hidden wealth untold. 



Build the lordly track of iron 

Through the pasture-lands and fields. 
That its greater strength may gather in 

And garner up the yields j 

Let the palpitating engines 

Spread their steam adown the valleys, 
And the woodlands hanging over 

Keep its echo in their alleys. 



Send the golden harvest outward. 
Bear away the corn and kine ; 

Open up the secret treasure 
Of the underlying mine ; 

Show the world your share of riches, 
Give to commerce what you can ; 

Show the dignity of labor 
And the worthiness of man ! 



SIXTY-FIVE. 

If a nation hath not goodness then it never can be 

great, 
For there's nothing like to virtue in the building of 

a State. 
Though you bring your quarried marble from a nml- 

titude of miles, 
And rear it into paiaces and monumental piles j 
Though with dome and arch and column you may 

beautify the land, 
Making earth and air and water pliant agents in your 

hand. 
Still without the seal of virtue on the charter of your 

State, 
In the eyes of Christian people you are neither good 

nor great ; 
In the eyes of God Almighty you are only great in 

sin, 
And he'll weigh you in the autumn when His Angel 

garners in. 



112 



SIXTY- FIVE. 



Let us look a moment calmly o'er the little season 

gone ; 
Let us mark the boggy places in the road we journey 

on : 
There are others to come after in the path which we 

have trod, 
Let us point them from the quicksand to the way 

upon the sod. 

There were mighty throes upon us when we ushered 

in the year 
Which yesterday in solemn shroud we saw upon its 

bier ; 
There were throes as if a giant on our being bent a 

knee, 
Admonishing of what we were and what we sought 

to be ; 
We had coffers heavy laden, we had ships upon the 

brine, 
We had fallow-lands and vineyards with their effer- 
vescing wine ; 
We were strong and stern and haughty from the 

growth of years before, 
And our plenitude of glory only made us crave the 

more : 
Not such glory as the Christian, in the presence of 

his God, 
Hath to come upon his spirit when he bows to kiss 

the rod ; 
But the vanity of power and the strength of humai 

pride, 



Sixty-five. 113 

That had made us scorn the virtues and the honors 

as they died : 
So a hand was laid upon us, and our glory stripped 

away 
As one might strip a flower-stem upon an autumn 

day. 



We have conquered many battles, we have gained a 

world-renown, 
We have driven gallant armies and have shaken cities 

down ; 
We have laid a land in ashes, we have made a people 

slaves, 
We have carried golden trophies from a citadel of 

graves ; 
There's blood upon our bayonets and blood upon 

our guns, 
And some of it's our brothers' blood and some of 

it's our sons'. 
"What boots it how we triumphed so a victory was 

gained ! 
Who wears the whiter garment may expect to have 

it stained ! " 
Thus spoke we in our vanity, our ecstasy of pride, 
As one who goes rejoicing o'er the grave of one that 

died ; 
So climbed we up the pathway to the pinnacle of 

sin, 
And o'er the gulf of darkness we were calmly look- 
ing m. 

J* 



114 SIXTY- FIVE. 

But the wrath of God was on us, and we felt His 

mighty hand 
As he stripped the mad ambition of its garments in 

the land. 
We were " proud and strong and haughty," but within 

a little day 
We Jiave seen our gilded treasures fast as bubbles 

float away : 
We are wrecked in pride and fortune ; we were rich, 

and we are poor ; 
There's a coffin in our dwelling and a sexton at our 

door. 



Let us turn the crimson pages in the record-book of 
war : 

There are giant sins upon us, giant crimes to answer 
for: 

There are cities laid in ashes, there are desolated 
farms ; 

There are starving children crying in their helpless 
mother's arms ; 

There are widows, there are orphans, cold and home- 
less in the land, 

With the husband and the father lying fleshless on 
the sand ; 

There is woe and want and sorrow over all the South- 
ern States ; 

From within the nation's chamber, we can hear it at 
the gates ; 

Yet our flags are flaunting bravely, and our music 
fills the air, 



SIXTY-FIVE. 



115 



For the burthen of the sorrow it is not for us to 

bear ; 
We have prison-cells and dungeons thickly peopled 

with the foe, 
And some have on the gibbet died, and some are 

dying slow. 



Such a fever and such passion over all the North 

has swept, 
That though weeping Mercy pleaded, it hath never 

known she wept \ 
And the vengeful cry for slaughter from the Puri- 
tanic crowd, 
In the halls of central power hath an echo fierce 

and loud ; 
From the Northern press and pulpit, from the bench 

and from the bar, 
Cometh all the evil pleading of a fury after war. 
And but a little while it seems, when frenzy ran so 

high 
The nation by a gallows stood to see a woman die — 
A woman weak and trembling and as guiltless as a 

child, 
But a victim to the fury of a passion fierce and wild. 
And here the high offended God put forth His hand 

again, 
To write upon the nation's brow the burning mark 

of Cain. 
Again for WiRZ, the foreigner, a wretched feeble man, 
But yesterday we filled his cup until it over-ran ; 



ll6 SIXTY-FIVE. 

And one by one we lessen them, these victims to our 

hate, 
And there's a thirst for human blood an ocean can 

not sate. 



At our helm we had a despot, and for him this crim- 
son tide, 
A Nero wdio could revel while his better subjects 

died ; 
But the Mighty Hand o'ertook him in his revel and 

his wrong, 
And it taught us in our weakness that the Deity 

was strong. 
There are those who call him martyr, there are those 

who call him great : 
After passion cometh reason. — let the better spirits 

wait ; 
As the water finds its level, so the characters of men — 
Some may die and be forgotten, some may die and 

live again. 
There's a gray-haired man in prison, under iron bolt 

and bar, 
A relic and a trophy from the desolating war ; 
He was once a mighty leader, such as few are born 

to be ; 
He had armies in the nation, he had ships upon the 

sea ; 
But our strength in war was greater, for we crushed 

hin\ with our might, 
And we watched his day of glory as it settled into 

night. 



SIXTY-FIVE. 



117 



Now we hold him bound and shackled, with a palsy 

in his arm ; 
We have seized and sacked his temple, he is power- 
less for harm. 
Bnt to crush and break his spirit, and to take away 

his all, 
For the crime of Revolution was a punishment too 

small ; 
And the nation must have vengeance, for her women 

cry for blood — 
Though it runs a mighty torrent they would have it 

run a flood. 
God forgive them all their passion ! God forgive them 

all their sin ! 
From their hearts drive out the anger, and invoke the 

mercv in I 



There's another cry of sorrow from the liberated 

black ; 
There is want among his children, and blood upon 

his track. 
From his proper grade and level they have thought 

to lift him up, 
And he glories at their banquet with a poison in his 

cup. 
From his love and from his labor they have taken 

him away. 
And the gloomy night is crowding over all his sunny 

day. 
^^'e can hear him in the darkness giving out his bit- 
ter moan, 



Il8 SIXTY-FIVE. 

While for all the bread he asketh they have only 

found a stcmc. 
Let him freeze and let him hunger — they are blind 

and cannot see ; 
It is food and cloth and shelter, and a glory to be 

FREE. 

O ye great and godly Christians ! O ye Puritanic 

souls, 
Have ye lost your human spirits ? are ye demons ? 

are ye ghouls? 
Was it not enough to wreck him in his hopes and in 

his all, 
That ye triumph so and revel at his miserable fall ? 



Though the sins of all the nation in their multitude 



There are crimes as black and cruel in the records 

of our State ; 
For Kentucky (God forgive her), though she sought 

to do the best, 
P>om the black and base attrition grew as callous 

as the rest. 
There were those who did her murder in the guise 

of right and law ; 
There's the blood of Hunt upon her, and of Corbin 

and McGraw ; 
And there's such a cry of sorrow from the grave of 

bleeding Long, 
As should pale the cheek of hatred in its memory of 

the wrong. 



SIXTY-FTVE. ' I If) 

God forgive us all our errors ! God forgive us all our 

crimes ! 
We have lived in sin and darkness — let us hope for 

better times. 



TO MASTER GEO. W. JOHNSTON 

In youth, my boy, I pray you keep 

This simple truth in view : 
That men are only counted great 

For goodly things they do. 

The man who lives an aimless life, 

Nor labors every day. 
Belongs to that ephemera 

That passes soon away ; 

But he who takes the labor-tools 

And seeks the science-fields, 
Will find the noble harvest that 

The golden autumn yields. 

The way to fame is over-grown 
With tangled weeds and vines. 

And many take the trodden path 
That from the goal inclines ; 



TO MASTER GEO. W. JOHNSTON. 121 \ 

But you, my boy, with compass true, ; 

Must keep the bearing straight, ' 

And cut the stubborn obstacles | 

That lie before the gate. : 

Be guided by the honor-laws j 

That gave your kindred name, 

And keep the course that ushered t'Uem \ 

Within the walls of fame ; \ 

And w'hen at last the honor-roll ; 

Above the world is spread, 
You will not blush to find your name 

Is written at the head. i 



HIS LAST DAY. 

As one who from his native place 

In tender youth had turned, 
To feel the brown upon his face 

Bv distant solstice burned ; 
Who, journey-worn and scarred and sore, 

And sickened with the past, 
Has reached again his father's door. 

And tottered in at last ; 

As one whose memory at home 

Is slowly fading out, 
Whose features to his kindred come 

In mistiness and doubt; 
Who from the sea has turned again 

The ingle-side to share, 
And fled the haunts of stranger men 

To be a stranger there. 

So I, to-night, a loiterer , 

In other paths and lands, 

122 



HIS LAST DAY, 123 

From struggle-scenes and wreck and fear, 

And death upon the sands, 
Have turned again an eager gaze 

Upon the homeward track. 
And through the mist and through the maze 

Have slowly travelled back. 



Here home at last ! ah, Home no more ! 

For time hath hurtled through, 
And faces that I study o'er, 

Alas ! are strange and new ; 
All new ! all strange, save only one, 

The old Familiar there ; 
And Time his silver-work hath done 

Upon the master's hair. 



I keep the outline of his face | 

As faithfully of late, 
As when with early artist-grace i 

I " did him "' on the slate : \ 

The kindly eye, the open brow, 1 

The lips that ever smiled, i 

I mark them just as truly now \ 

As when I was a child. 1 



The bold front teeth, the queer-turned nose 

(Your pardon, sir, I pray), 
The forward step upon the toes, 

Thev seem like vesterdav. 



124 



HIS LAST DAY. 

Though Time hath fled with gray and brown, 

I mark him just as well 
As when he pulled the old rope down 

And tied me to the bell. 

Full thirty years have fleeted by 

Since first the school began, 
And fi-om a little urchin I 

Have grown to be a man ; 
])Ut I would dash the cares of men 

And give — I cannot tell — 
If he could take me back again 

And tie me to the bell. 

The dear companions of my class, 

Habitues at play, 
Have some of them gone down the glass, 

And some live great to-day. 
I've watched the progress of them all, 

And in the ways of fame 
I hear at every honor-call 

Some well-remembered name. 



The pulpit and the bench and bar, 

The science-fields of earth. 
The blood-red annals of the war 

Are vocal with their worth. 
Throughout the land, from Kast to West, 

From Erie to the Keys, 
The spirits known and loved the best 

Were nurtured here — like these. 



HIS LAST DAY. 

When late, for sad fraternal strife 

Our battle lines were drawn, 
And North and South alike were rife 

With armies marching on, 
A portion of the early class 

On either side were found ; 
And some are 'neath the trampled grass, 

And some live vet renowned. 



All honor to the dust of those 

Who in the struggle fell, 
Who grew as friends but met as foes, 

And fought each other well ; 
Their soldier-graves shall long attest 



-^5 



To future passers-by, 
That duke et decoriun est 
Fro patria mori. 



I come to-night with weary heart 

And saddened eye, to find 
Some vestige of the scholar-art 

Left years ago behind : ' 

The labors of the early age, I 

The mysteries of school, \ 

The art to scan a Virgil page, j 

The Algebraic rule. ' ] 

From other scenes and other toils 

Too late, alas ! I turn ; \ 



126 /^/^' LAST DAY. 

The science-lamps their sacred oils 
No more for me shall burn. 

The springs of youth that joyous sped 
Their courses to the river, 

Have mingled with the waves, and fled 
The flower-wavs forever. 



What though a stranger in the thron; 

That now the master sways, 
I claim the right to give my song 

The flush of other days ; 
And here upon this honored stand 

A gratitude to show 
To him who gave a guiding hand, 

So many years ago. 



Ah, more than all, to-night should band 

The early friends and true. 
To take the master's honest hand, 

And bid him here adieu ; 
Nay, let the gush of tender years 

Adown their channels run ; 
The labor of his thirty years 

Is well and nobly done. 



ELMWOOD. 

I, ALONE of all at Elmwood — 

I, alone of all, 
Hear the night-sands dropping slowly 

Hear them as the}^ fall. 
Over me the spirit's slumber 

That these moments bring, 
Has not cast the sombre shadow 

Of the night's narcotic wing. 

Wakeful now, and full of feeling 

As the stars of light, 
I can count the even-pulses 

Beating through the night ; 
I can count the palpitations 

Of the vision-driven hearts, 
By the great magnetic power 

Which poetic night imparts. 

There is one of all at Elmwood, 
One alone of all, 



127 



12 S ELM WOOD. 

Who would start to know her pulses 

Echoed up the hall — 
Echoed up the gloomy stairway 

And along the quiet hall — 
One who in the glaring day-time 

Never beats a pulse at all. 

Oh I read her, now she sleepeth ; 

Feast upon her dream ; 
Catch the real of her spirit 

In its glory-beam. 

We are strangers at the noontide 3 

She a study deep to me, 
She a language dead, a scripture 

Upon tablets in the sea. 
But I read her now at midnight — 

Read her very soul ; 
Oh, I creep upon her slumber 

Silent as a ghoul ; 
And I feast upon her vision — 

Feast upon it, at the price 
Which gave Adam wondrous knowledge, 

Whilst it lost him — Paradise ! 



RESPONSE — IMPROMPTU. 



I DO not forget you — I never have thought 

A moment to check the sweet flow of our love ; 

I cannot forget what so hately you taught, 

I cannot throw clown the bright wreath that you 
wove. 



Oh the young bird of Hope, with its plumage of truth, 
That flits in the noontide of life's early spring, 

Hath a season so brief in the gardens of youth 
That flowers but once feel the rush of its wing:. 

Not so w^hen the sun has passed over the hill, 
To the autumn of life with its yellower sheaves ; 

If Hope comes at all, Oh its melodies All 

In the long afternoon all the murmuring leaves. 



I do not forget you — no, no! while my heart 

Hath been touched with the shadow of seasons 



gone by 



i2y 



130 J^ESPOXSE — I M PRO MP TU. 

While lamp after lamp hath gone out at the start, 
I cannot believe that all passions will die. 



I pray you forego every thought that would give 
But a color of falsehood to what I have said ; 

'Twere shame that a spirit so faithless should live — 
Twere better a friendship so hollow were dead. 

Then let us strike hands in that honester way 
That tells to ourselves we are unriven friends ; 

So when life shall have come to its twilight and 
gray, 
A\'e may smile at the silvery thread that it sends. 



THE DEAD THAT SHONE 



[Read before the Confederate Memorial Association at the decoration of 
Confederate graves, Maysville, Ky., June 12th, 18S3.] 



From hills that rise with crowning woods 

In light and air a-quiver, 
Still send the springs their mimic floods, 

Free tribute, to the river; 
From freighted leaves that zephyrs turn 

When morning bends them over, 
Still fall the dew-drops on the burn 

That glitters through the clover. 

Where shadows rest, where sunbeams play, 

In laughter and in revel, 
Still go the brooks a vagrant way 

Toward the lower level. 
Through summer green, through autumn brown. 

With steady placid motion, 
Still sweeps the blue Ohio down 

To meet the waiting ocean. 



132 



THE DEAD THAT SHONE, 

Thus is it with all human kind — 

Thus wi'l it be forever ! 
Man's passage here is well defined 

In rill, and brook, and river ; 
He Cometh as a drop of dew. 

His light a moment showing. 
A breath — and fallen, lost to view 

Upon the under-flowing. 

This common course, this common end, 

Is true, alas ! to nature. 
So goes the foe, so goes the friend, 

And every living creatine ; 
And drops make up the little rill. 

The rills make up the river, 
They speed to where is lying still 

The ocean wide — Forever ! 

Who, in some morning's moment brief, 

Hath not been blest and christened, 
By dew, that on some flower leaf 

That single moment glistened.^ 
Who hath not seen the rainbow hue, 

When morn is moisture-freighted. 
That makes a perfect drop of dew 

The fairest thing created? 

What atom in this atom world 
Of ash, and spark and ember, 



THE DEAD THAT SHONE. 

Is more in human eyes impearled 

Or sweeter to remember? 
And who, that through his morning rife 

Shook down the gems hi showers, 
Hath not, from crowding eve of life, 

Called back the dewy hours. 

Some lives flow out from hidden springs 

And are not clearly singled, 
They move, a mass of living things. 

Of bodies dark, commingled ; 
But some are born like drops of dew 

By rainbow arches bounded. 
With surface bright and outline true. 

Completely made and rounded. 

In memory of such as these 

Who glorified the hours. 
We gather here, beneath the trees, 

With knots and wreathes of flowers. 
Here, finding peace and perfect rest 

From rill and river motion, 
A few that lived and shone the best 

Have found, at last, the Ocean. 

And here are typified the dews 
That come, the world adorning, 

For these were men of rainbow hues 
Brushed down in life's fresh morning, 

L 



13: 



134 



THE DEAD THA T SHONE. 

What matter if they came to sight 
From gowans of the meadow ! 

They only shone with stronger light 
By reason of the shadow. 

But here were some from daisy bloom, 

And here were some from roses ; 
On common level in the tomb 

Humanity reposes. 
In earth the evil and the just, 

The high and low are blended ; 
It's ash to ash and dust to dust 

When human life is ended. 



With garlands green and flowers fair, 

We come to deck the places, 
Where rest the few of virtue rare 

That higher manhood graces. 
Upon these mounds that, sprinkled here, 

Disclose the sadder story. 
Let living bloom to-day appear 

A semblance frail of glory. 

Here lies the dust of men who fell — 
The blood of heroes freeing — 

Who nobly gave to principle 
The tribute of their being ; 

And some were in the gray of morn 
And some the blue of even, 



THE DEAD J HAT SHONE. 135 ' 

The older grown, the later born, 
To pride and purpose given. 

In Shiloh's bloody battle tide \ 

By flaming cannon lighted, ; 

When Albert Sidney Johnston died \ 

A country's hope was blighted. j 

A monument shall bear his name ] 

Enduring as the river, 

And all of glory, all of fame I 

Shall be for him forever. 

And lumibler names shall take the stone 

And be retained in story — 
Let's carve them deep and make them known 

To magnitude of glory ; ■ 

For there are heroes yet unsung 

Who lie within the wicket, 
The gallant Pelham " — fearless Young, 1 

And Lashbrooke, Watts, and Pickett. \ 

From all the wars here rest some dead 

To do the Country honor, 1 

To show what wealth Kentucky shed j 

In sacrifice upon her ; 
For some there were whose mounds here show — 

Grand actors in the drama — 
Who wore the blue in Mexico, 

The gray in Alabama. ' 



136 THE DEAD THAT SHONE. \ 

i 

God speed the work that keeps in mind * 

This grand heroic feature ! ] 

That teaches man to love his kind ' 

And elevates his nature ; 

That makes him like the drop of dew j 

That rests upon the flower, i 

Of perfect form, of rainbow hue — ^ j 

The diamond of his hour. \ 



AT CLEARING. 

Two ships weigh anchor in the cove ; 

Two ships slide out the brine ; 
And one white sail is thine, my love, 

And one white sail is mine. 

A land of peace, hid in the grey 

Beyond our eyes define ! 
Will thy ship find its quiet bay. 

Thy ship, my love or mine? 

Thou, God, make faith our steering star, 
Through clouds alway to shine. 

And bring within Thy harbor-bar 
My wife's white ship and mine. 



L'i^ 



37 



CURE FOR HEADACHE 



My brain is athrob with a pulsing unrest. 

And fever is over my breath ; 
Oh, bury my head in the snow of your breast 

And let me be frozen to death. 



138 



UNDERNEATH. 

Some tuneful words that in our hearts 

Bisect the prosy courses, 
Do, by their rhythm, drive the parts 

Insensibly to verses. 

While sadder things the autumn days 
Our outer lives are bringing, 

A thousand summer roundelays 
The inner voice is singing. 

What though we move in sober coats 

The Quaker masses after .^ 
There's something welling in our throats, 

Unorthodox as laughter. 



We take the sacerdotal stole 
And priestly surplice o'er us, 



139 



1 4 o ^ 'NDERXEA TIL 



To liide the real music-soul 
And smother down its chorus. 

What foolish arts beset us all ! 

How we ourselves are tasking ! 
There's every day a funeral, . 

And all the mourners masking. 



SIXTY-SIX. 

PROLOGUE. 

There's a sculptor for the marbles 
Over all the buried years, 

And his smooth and polished labor 
In a line of white appears. 

He hath cunning with the chisel, 
And hath graved the record in, 

Telling what the years departed 
In their livinsr-time have been. 



He has now a greater labor, 
Worthy all his better skill ; 

He has carved us many virtues - 
Let him carve us now the ill. 



From the black Egyptian marble 
Let him build a column high, 

That the coming years may mark it 
In their quiet passage by. 



141 



142 



S/XTY-S/X. 



Never yet hath sculptor graven 
More of crime or more of sin. 

Than is better now for speaking 
What this latter year hath been ! 



We are moving slowly onward 
Through a vista-way of years ; 

We are looking to a future 
Full of sorrow and of tears ; 



There is not a light to guide us, 

Not a gleam upon the sky ; 
All our hopes are dead and buried, 

All our joys have flitted by. 

We are not the Christian nation 
That we once were thought to be, 

When with common voice we worshipped 
"From the centre to the sea." 



We are not a godly people ; \ 

We are very far away t 

From the path that leadeth outward ' 

To the everlasting day. ; 

I 

Let us see how much of virtue . \ 

We have left in all the store, - 

Where a world hath looked and wondered i 

In the happy days before. ' 



SIXTY-SJX. 143 



Let us see how great and godly 
Are the acts of those who take 

On themselves the nation's ermine 
For the troubled nation's sake. 

First of all, we dare be tyrant — 
We who thought the English sway 

Over torn and trampled Erin 
Should be rudely dashed awayj 

IVe who wept for bleeding Poland, 
And our Christian flag unfurled, 

That its folds might flaunt defiance 
Unto ail a tyrant world. 

VVe have learned another lesson 
In the onward march of time. 

And we build our greatest virtue 
From the fabric of a crime ; 



And we spurn aside the maxim 
That "your truer blood will show 

That " he is most ignoble 

Who would trample on a foe." 



We have swept our foreign legions 
Over all the Southern bands — 

They were fewer than the Spartans, 
We were many as the sands — 



M4 



SIX TV-SAY. 1 

And because of all their courage, ^ 

All their stubbornness in fight, j 

All their pride of birth and section, ■• 

All their love of human right, \ 

j 

We must put our feet upon them — J 

We must crush and bend them low, J 

Lest their better blood and breedin.L'; j 

In the future "come to show.'' j 



This is Christian, this is proper, 

This is Puritanic law, 
And we see the goodly future 

As our Plymouth fathers saw. 

What are f/iey that we should love them? 

They are little of our kin ; 
Seldom yet hath Southern current 

Let the Northern current in. 

Proud of blood and proud of bearing, 

Quick in anger to a foe, 
Never yet hath given insult 

Been without attendant blow. 



We are calmer, better balanced, 
We are cooler in our veins ; 

We have less of heart in battle. 
More of calculating brains ; 



SIXTY-SIX. 

We are not a kindred people, 
And the passage yet of years 

Will not mix the Plymouth wateis 
With the blood of Cavaliers I 

Next, we claim a godly power, 
And we widen out our span 

When we raise the apish negro 
To the standard of a man. 

This we do for godly reasons — 
Such our early fathers gave, 
"That the servant may be master, 
And the master may be slave." 

Thus we raise him from the level 
To his greatest earthly goal. 

And we take away his instinct, 
And we g\^Q him back a soul — 

Such a soul as we are given, 

Such a soul as makes him great: 

He is worthy of the chancel. 
He is worthy of the State ! 

He may come into our circles. 
He may mingle with our blood, 

He shall be our equal brother 
As he was before the Flood. 

M 



J 45 



,46 SIXTY-SJX, 

Though the curse of God was on him, 
Though he wandered m the land, 

We would give hnn whitest vesture, 
We would take him by the hand. 



In the summer all our meadows 
Were a-bloom with scented hay. 

And the corn upon our acres 
Spread its fullness far away ; 

All the shadows of the woodland 
Were astir with heavy kine. 

And the hill-sides gave their treasure 
From the rich Catawba vine. 



Far indeed from cold and hunger, 
Far indeed from want and woe, 

We are in the golden current, 
In the glory of its flow. 

Let the people down below us. 

In the desolated land. 
Starve and shiver in the palaces 

They built upon the sand ; 

We have corn and wine and vesture 
Let it rot and let it mould ; 

They have nothing now to give us, 
Neither human love nor gold. 



SIXTY-SrX. 147 

O ye rich and pampered people ! 

O ye cold and cruel men ! 
They have crossed your swords in battle, 

Thev were one and vou were ten ! 



Dare you press your heel upon them, 
When ye usher back the day 

That your full and feasted legions 
Fled before the starving Grey / 

Are ye cowards, are ye cravens 
That ye fear to let them live? 

Can ye see a nation perish 

Whilst ye have the food to give ? 

They had richer fields and vineyards. 
Better homes and broader lands, 

Till ye threw the torch among them 
From your desolating bands. 

They were proof against your valor, 
They had better-tempered steel — 

Think ye now your servant Hunger 
\\\\\ be proud to see them kneel. 

Not to you, O callous stranger ' 
Not to baser blood and birth 

Will the true chivalric Southron 
Bend his knee upon the earth. 



[48 



Better starve amid the ruins 
Of his fallen arch and dome ! 

Better die amid the ashes 
Of his violated home ! 

Not for cold nor not for hunger 
Will he kiss your iron rod : 

There's an altar for his kneeling, 
It is only to his God ! 

What of him who, great and noble, 
Stood so very long at bay, 

Whilst the veterans drawn around him 
Left their crimson in the way? 

Still in bondage, still in prison, 
Living still yet near to death, 

Never yet hath human being 

Drawn on earth a prouder breath 

First among his race and kindred, 
First among his noble clan, 

He has taught a cruel nation 
How to sufter as a man. 



All that cunning, all that malice, 
All that human hate can do, 

All that any Christian martyr 
In his dying ever knew, 



SIXTY-SIX. 



149 



He has known and felt and suffered, 

And his spirit liveth still, 
Something more than mortal courage, 

Somethino: more than human will. 



Oh that they could learn to conquer ! 

Oh that they could come to know 
How the truer way is opened 

To the bosom of a foe ! 

Not by bars of steel and iron. 
Not 'by rack and torture here, 

Can ye force the higher spirit 
From its great and only sphere. 

Throw your prison-gates asunder, 
Strike the iron from his hand, 

Bid him walk the earth a freeman, 
Make him equaf in the land ; 

Show him tirst that you are noble. 
Let him see that you are brave, 

Act no longer as a coward, 
Be not brutal as a slave. 

While he lingers in the shackles 

He is master of you all. 
He is freer than the sentry 

In your very prison-hall ; 



^5° 



SIXTY-SIX 

He is better, prouder, freer 

Than the proudest of your State ; 

He can teach you what is noble, 
He can show you what is great. 

May the angels at his pillow 
Their undying vigils keep ! 

God preserve his Southern children, 
Who are praying as they weep ! 



As the fire hid in ashes , 

Under mountains of the earth, 

When Its red volcanic lava 
Struggles into upper birth, 

There are words that come unbidden, 
And the lips are burst apart 

]]y a passion leaping upward 
From Its covert in the heart. 



Though we bury wrongs, to hide them 
From our own and other eyes. 

There are those that in us quicken, 
For the spirit never dies ; 



And upward from the charnel 
Come the living that were dead. 

All the olden wounds upon them, 
All the marks of M'here they bled. 



SIXTY-SIX. 151 



Oh that crimes and wrongs were fewer ! 

Oh that men were better grown ! 
Oh that veins had less of fever ! 

Oh that hearts had less of stone ! 



Brave Kentucky ! brave, but laggard 
When her sisters gave their blood, 

She has walked into the current 
With her bosom to the flood ; 

She has dared to give example 
To the cruel-hearted States, 

When she meets her Southern children 
With a welcome at her gates. 

Though a tyrant held her silent 
In the shadow of her guns, 

She had all a mother's yearning 
For the glory of her sons ; 

And with chains upon her person, 
And a hand upon her mouth. 

She had not a pulse within her 
But was beating for the South. 

Better far than poor Missouri, 

Better far than Tennessee, 
And Virginia, best of any, 

Better now than she. 



^52 



SIX TVS IX. 

Ah, Virginia ! torn and bleeding, 
O'er the ashes of her dead 

Let the tears of queenly woman 
Be the requiem that is said. 

Though they build no pallid marble 
O'er the silence of their graves, 

There are tombs in fairer bosoms 
For Virginia's fallen braves. 

Pass, O seasons, spring and summer ! 

Come again, O winter cold ! 
Time shall never lose the record, 

Time shall hear the story told ! 

Truth has more of spirit-feature, 
Falsehood more of human cast ; 

Nations yet unborn shall hear it. 
Truth shall conquer at the last. 



LEE. 

We saw the fragile maiden, May, 
Trip down the paths of morning. 

And queen July ni central day, 
Her flower-throne adorning ; 

And weeping trees in sombre lines 
Took up an anthem murmur, 

When August, with her trailing vines, 
Went out the gates of Summer. 

Now yellow husks are on the grain, 
And leaves are brown and sober, 

And sundown clouds have caught again 
The flush of ripe October ; 

We hear the woody hill-tops croon. 
The airy maize-blades whisper, 

The year is in its afternoon, 
And leaf-bells ring the vesper. 



153 



154 



LEE. 

What is it gives this gloaming-song 

Its melancholy feature? 
What is it makes our souls prolong 

This monotone of nature ? 



What tearful grief is in our hearts — 
What swaying under-reaso.n ? 

What sorrow real now imparts 
Its spirit to the season? 

Tht crisping leaves may shoal the wavs, 
The sun turn down the heavens — 

Still all the years have fading days, 
And all the days have evens : 

Enough — whatever else may be — 
That in this autumn weather, 

The verdure of the world and Lee 
Have silent fled together. 

So prone are men where'er they move 

To tread the ways of e\il, 
They seldom hold their kind above 

A common grade and level ; 

But Lee, beside his fellow-man, 

Stood, over all, a giant — 
The higher type — the perfect plan — 

God fearing, God-reliant. 



LEE. 



^55 



A giant not alone in fields 

Where benf the sanguine Reaper, 

Where Death thre^v o'er his harvest-yields 
An autumn crimson deeper ; 

But with an iron strength of will 
He sought his life to fashion ; 

He held his ruder pulses still, 
And closed the gates of passion. 

There have been men whose mighty deeds, 

On cold historic pages, 
Are driven like October seeds 

Along the reaching ages ; 

Whose statues stand like sentinels, 

On whited shafts and bases, 
Whose ashes rest in marble cells. 

And sepulchres and vases ; 

But he who in this autumn time 

Was lost beyond the river, 
Has found a glory-path to climb, 

Forever and forever ! 

And monumental marble here, 

With deeds of honor graven. 
What can it be to one so near 

The inner gates of Heaven ? 



156 LEE, 

\\\ still Potomac's margin dun, 
Where shrilly calls the plover^ 

Where lean the heights of Arlington 
Its glassing waters over, 

No autumn voices haunt the moles, 

No breezy covert ripples, 
No longer whirl the leaves in shoals 

Beneath the stately maples ; 

Some vandal's axe has shorn the crcsi, 
The woody slopes are shaven. 

No longer builds the dove her nest 
Where mournful croaks the raven ; 

But down the Southland's fruity plain 
The leaves are all a-quiver, 

And there his memory shall reign 
Forever and forever ! 



THE DEVIL'S HOLLOW 

On Devil's hill 

The Day-king still 
His amber robe is trailing ; 

Floats up to sight 

The Qiieen of night, 
Her white, sweet face unvailing. 

In silver cars 

The courtier stars 
With leal allegiance follow ; 

As kling-go-ling 

The cow-bells ring 
From out the Devil's hollow. 

How smooth and hard 
The boulevard 
This autumn eve for walking ; 



157 



J ^8 THE DEVIL'S HOLLOW. 

Beneath the cliffs, 
In misty skiffs, 

I hear the fishers talking ; 
Above the bridge, 
'Round Devil's ridge. 

Still flits the tardy swallow, 
As klinor-oro-ling 

too O 

The cow-bells ring 
From out the Devil's hollow. 



Oh, mystic scene ! 

The still ravine ! 
The bridge ! the elm ! the river ! 

For love and rhyme 

This twilight time 
Should linger here forever ; 

No meeter field 

Was e'er revealed 
For Daphne or Apollo, 

As kling-go-ling 

The cow-bells ring 
From out the Devil's hollow. 



Though nights to be 

Come fair to me. 
Beyond my fancy's bringing, 

When light shall steer 

Some gondolier. 
With maids to gittern singing. 



THE DEVIL'S HOLLOW. i-,j 

From distance long, 

Shall float the song, 
Above their tra-la la-la, 

The klang-go-lang 

The cow-bells rang 
A-dovvn the Devil's hollow. 



THANKSGI VING. 

For meet dispense of shine and rain 

On mold and sod ; 
- For gathered seeds, for garnered grain, 

Give thanks to God ! 
Give thanks for fecund summer fields; 
Give thanks for fullest autumn yields. 

For greening stools of growling wheat 

In spring to nod ; 
For present grace, for promise sweet, 

Give thanks to God ! 
Give thanks for fruity tree and vine ; 
Give thanks for raiment, meat, and wine. 

For pleasures spread, for riches veined 
Through paths untrod ; 
1 60 



THANKSGIVING. 16 1 

For realms to seek, for realms attained, 

Give thanks to God ! 
Give thanks for glory pre designed ; 
Give thanks for muscle, manhood, mind ! 

For steerage clear beyond the shoals ; 

For sparing rod ; 
For peace, for hope, for deathless souls. 

Give thanks to God ! 
Give thanks for life, for action free. 
For all that is and is to be ! 



CHANGE. 



Pink-cheek'd, blue-eyed, and fair, 

With swirls of golden hair ; 

On shoulders bare, j 

I saw them every-where. j 

Upon my round, i 

I found, i 

Throughout the street, 

Their faces sweet — ! 

Girl-children — little motes j 

Of womanhood, i 

With voices in their throats < 

Like those that fill the wood j 

When winter breaks 

And man awakes 

To know that God is good. •; 

Sweet girls, [ 

162 ] 



CHANGE. 163 

That went along 

With song 

And laughter, 

Not recking of the after, 

But flitting in the sun and shade, 

As they were made 

Like flowers are. 

All fair, 

And fresh, and sweet, 

Creation to complete. 

But yesterday 

Upon my way 

I saw them, at their ease, 

With petticoats above the knees, 

Go through the pool, 

A joyous way to school. 

It seems so short a time, 

It does not chime 

With truth to say, 

'T was yesterday ; 

And, yet, 

I almost think their feet are wet, 

As now I see them pass — 

New pictures in the glass — 

Lithe maids. 

With gathered braids 

And hooded heads. 

Young thoroughbreds ! 

With hair gone up and skirts gone down — 



164 CHANGE, 

The glory of the town ! 

They broke the bonds of barefoot phiy 

Since yesterday. 

And this is change ! 

In all the /ange 

Of human sight, 

Through shade and light, 

It Cometh every-where — 

The very air 

Doth change its temper in the year 

The birds of spring appeal ; 

The grasses grow 

And streams are set aflow ; 

And while we look 

The brook 

Is closed o'er ; 

The bud hath blossomed on the shore, 

And from a brief 

Existence in the leaf, 

It turneth down 

Unto the grass grown brown. 

Some change, upon my round 

I note on every ground ; 

New features 'wake 

As hidden crysalides break, 

And all things take 

A new complexion in the sun, 

As, one by one, 

The sure sands run. 



CHANGE. 

The barefoot girl 

With straggling curl 

And careless swing, 

Became another thing 

In time ; 

She did not climb, 

And wade the pool, 

Her later maiden way to school : 

With modest looks 

She bore her books, 

And as she passed, 

Nor slow, nor fast, 

Went as she should. 

The stately way of womanhood ! 

So with the boy: 

His toy 

Is thrown aside ; 

He does not ride 

With such exultant speed. 

The old velocipede. 

As days go by 

His eye 

Hath compassed greater things ; 

He swings 

A wider circle now. 

His brow 

Begins to ache for bays 

To crown it in his latter days ; 

He seeks a plan 



'65 



^C) CHANGE. 

To make the man, 
And puts away 
His yesterday. 

And so again, 

With men, 

They seek a wider range, 

And greater change 

Of after-life; 

Grow weary of the strife 

And moil 

And toil 

Of earth. 

They seek the newer birth — 

The peace and quiet of the grave, 

And Him who died to save. 

This law 

Should give us awe. 

This never-failing course 

Of Nature's force, 

Is planned 

Upon a basis grand, 

The cunning Maker of the scheme 

Hath closed every seam. 

And finished every part 

With perfect art. 

We have our days 
Of great amaze. 



CHANGE. 

At all the wonders done 

Beneath the sun. 

We see 

The little seed that makes the tree. 

It taketh root, 

And beareth leaf, and bud, and fruit ; 

And leaf must brown, and fruit must fall. 

And death must follow after all. 

We note the rain 

Shed over hill and plain, 

And streams in laughter 

Coming after, 

Until the land, its yellow blood 

Gives up to make the flood ; 

And when the cloud has pass'd. 

The sun at last, 

Comes out to drink the sea ; 

The water goeth from the lea, 

And, by and by, 

The earth is dry. 

And newer clay 

Is in the field of yesterday. 

The days and years. 

Alternate, come with smiles and tears, 

And all this rule of change must keep, 

And all must smile, and all must weep. 

He smiles the best who weeps the most, 

And neither smile nor tear is lost. 

The tear is rain — the smile is sun — 



167 



1 6s CHANGE 

We could not part with either one. 

In day we wake, 

In night we sleep ; 

In youth we smile, 

In age we weep ; 

And sweet our early childhood seems, 

And sweeter still our later dreams, 

And sweet, through all the days and years, 

Are all our smiles and all our tears ; 

We take the whirl 

Through every grade, 

From barefoot girl 

To lissom maid — 

From maid to woman — youth to man — 

And keep, throughout, the perfect plan. 



GOOD- NIGHT. 

" Wait till the moon goes down — 
Wait yet a little time," she said, 
And to the trellis leaned her head, 
In braids of autumn-brown. 

Both her still hands in mine. 
Full close I stood and caught her sighs, 
And looked great love in sweet, wide eyes, 

And made no other sign. 

And westward went the moon. 
And brighter grew the craggy edge — 
The silver turrets of the ledge 

Must hide its glory soon. 

It was not soon to me ; 

I felt the moments grown to years. 

With my lips on the verge of hers — 

Dead shells beside the sea. 

169 



170 



GOOD-NIGHT. 

Cold were my lips like shells, 
As there I saw the white tulle float, 
A misty sea about her throat 

A sea of foamy swells. 

And closer still I stood. 
And colder grew, and trembled strong, 
And then red lava ran along 

The alleys of my blood. 

And still her hands, so white, 
So small, I held in mine so great, 
Until the moon went down in state. 

And then I said " sfood-nisfht ! " 



WHEN SCHOOL "LETS OUT." 

When school " lets out" at sun-down time. 
And shadows long up hill-sides climb, 
With leap and romp and laugh and shout, 
In kilt and smock and roundabout, 
By grain-field fence, through pasture-grass, 
A foot-worn way, her scholars pass ; 
And bright-faced elf and brown-faced lout 
Go heart-glad home, when school " lets out.' 

I sit and watch, where, white and slow, 
The mistress moves in grace below : 
A lithe young girl, with folded hands. 
With low-down locks in wide, brown bands. 
Who floats in light where deep shade lies, 
With sweet, sad looks in lake-blue eyes ; 
I sit and watch, and hope and doubt 
I know not what, when school '• lets out." 

171 



172 



WHEN SCHOOL ''LETS O UT, " 

Were I so young as they who know 
The mild maid-rule, just there below : 
Would I be glad as they who pass 
By grain-field fence and pasture-grass ? 
Would I be glad the home bound way, 
And laugh and shout and romp as they? 
It might be so in roundabout, 
But not, as now, when school " lets out." 

Some day — how soon I can not tell. 
But some day soon, I know full well — 
My feet shall fall with beat as slow 
The green-laid way that hers do go. 
And I shall feel my great heart rise 
To tender looks from lake-blue eyes, 
And there shall be no fear, no doubt, 
Her hand in mine, when school '^ lets out. 



CHRISTMAS. 

The day had gathered from the night, 

When, in God's truth abiding, 
There came three men on camels white 

From out the desert riding — 
Three heralds gray, that through the morn 

Were speeding fast and faster, 
Proclaiming loud : " The King is born ! 

We come to serve the Master ! " 

And days have been, and days have gone. 

And years on years have darkened. 
Since in that blessed Christ-day morn, 

The three wise men were hearkened ; 
And still, through all the maze of years 

That constant Time is summing, 
To trustful eyes there yet appears 

Three snow white camels coming. 

173 



74 CHRISTMAS. 

\ 

Oh, let it fall, or clear or gray, : 

With sunshine or with shower, i 

Our Holy Master's natal day \ 

Shall have no saddened hour. ■ 

God send His fairest Christmas morn ! | 

God free all souls from trammels ! l 

Let men proclaim : " The King is born !" 

Let all see three white camels. 



THE BOURBON HORSE-THIEF. 

A STILL, fall night in the fields of Bourbon ; 

The dip burnt down in the breeder's room ; 
Lamplight faint in the distance urban ; 

Starlight faint in the mist-thick gloom. 

Ten by the clock from the spire at Paris ; 

The moon not up, but the east sky gray ; 
Knee-deep grass in the grove where the mare is ; 

Wide green meads in the lands away. 

Full three score miles to the hills of Rowan ; 

Six full hours till the red daybreak ; 
I'll ride as the crow flies — grass and gowan — 

A grand blood-bay, or a grave at stake ! 

My black mare champs in the locust thicket ; 

A nostril wide and a nicker low ; 
A true vedette to a hard-by picket — 

Steady, good girl ! — there 's blood to go. 

175 



1 76 THE B O URB ON HOR SE- THIEF. 

Cope, boy ! cope, boy — he 's nearing the cover- 
Cope, boy ! cope, boy — be steady there, Prue- 

He scents the corn and he leaves the clover ; 
Gods ! what a mount for a grand review ! 



Ho, boy ! so-h boy ! ha ! curse on his shying ! 

A true speed strain, or I know no hoof! 
Ho, boy ! cope, boy ! he 's offish ; how trying ! 
Merciless villain, to stand aloof! 

Hither, my girt, come out of the shadow ; 

Teach the Adonis there 's naught to fear. 
A queen of the road ! a king of the meadow ! 

Death and the devil ! the moon is here. 

So-h ! coming at last ! now, beauty, be still I 
A silk-soft flank, a grip at the nose ; 

There 's ever a way for a right good will ; 
Saddle and spur, and away he goes. 

Follow, my lass ; no moment to squander ; 
It's forty miles to the mouth of Slate ; 

Venturesome here, but it's dangerless yonder- 
Beautiful stride as we cleared the gate ! 

Over the rise, in shade of the maples, 
And down the slope to Stoner's ford. 

A risk, mayhap, to run in the ripples — 
A thorough-bred or — a cooling-board. 

Good ! here we are ! no tide in the water ! 
Hist ! what is that on the other side .^ 



THE BOURBON HORSE-THIEF. 

A Paris beau and the breeder's dausfhter — 
Taking it late for a lover's ride. 

Bother the fool ! he stared at the horses ; 

He turned in saddle to see the bay ; 
He '11 ride right hard if he rides my courses ; 

The hills of Rowan or Hell by day ! 

Here, over the w^all to the left; it's better 

By far to lope in the rye just now^ 
The black mare knows that a midnight clatter 

Is not correct in the road, somehow. 

A ten-rail panel ahead. We'll throw it; 

A rail and a rider is all we need. 
There, now it's down ; why, a scrub could go it • 

It is n't a break for a blooded steed. 

Hark! my ear is at fault, or the air is ; 

What a murmuring noise in the corn ; 
There ! it 's back in the region of Paris ; 

And i'ts somebody blowing a horn. 

Blow on, poor fool, till your lungs are tested ; 

The trump of a chase is joy to me ; 
The bay is fresh, and the black is rested ; 

The moon is up and the fields are free. 

Hinkston is here, like a silken ravel, 

Its white line laid on a ground of green. 

The wind is slow to the way we travel — 
A hoof unheard and a horse unseen. 



177 



yS THE BOURBON HORSE-THIEF. 

Oh ! for a war in the world ; a strider 

Equal to this for a hasty raid ! 
Glory for two of us — horse and rider-^ 

Ah ! this is the way that names are made. 

Bath already, for yonder is Bethel ; 

It 's just an hour to the mouth of Slate ; 
The Fat Creek Knobs and the glens of Athol ; 

The horns of Bourbon were blown too late. 

Nothing to fear in the fells of Licking ! 

The ford is fair and the water low. 
I crossed it once when the ice was breaking — 

It was n't a time to travel slow. 

What's that.? only the spit of a rifle. 

Somebody's tithing a herd to-night. 
A fool, to risk so much for a trifle — 

A light below and the town in sight. 

People must live, and cries of the younger 
Go never unheard, at night, for food ; 

Property laws and the laws of hunger 
Are not the make of a common mood. 

Answ^ered ! so ho ! and over the border ! 

A signal shot from the other side ! 
A slacker rein, and the spur in order ! 

It's coming at last — the time to ride. 

Off' like a bolt, and faster and faster ! 
It 's safe if only we pass the town ! 



THE BOURBON HORSE-THIEF, 

Go, my steed, for yourself and your master; 
They'll have to ride if they ride us down. 

Over — hurrah for the hills of Row^an! 

A foam-white flank, but the danger past ; 
Over the grass, and over the gowan — 

The village of Morehead gained at last; 

Two score and a half, and a half to go — 
A merry dash by a mellow moon ; 

They beat the break in the briars below, 
But bantered the game a bit too soon. 

I ride right on to the star of morning ! 

A red brush bound to a shaly way ! 
Was ever a prize so worth the earning — 

Ever such blood as the Bourbon bay ! 

After us still ? a pack of the beagles ! 

Treachery here in the uplands free ! 
Cowardly dogs, in sight of the eagles : 

Better they never be known to me ! 

Powder again ! the sing of a missile ! 

They try to rival my run with lead. 
I know the piece by the pellet's whistle : 

It isn't the first has grazed my head. 

The black mare down ! O, murderous devil ! 

He had n't the soul of her he smote ! 
The day shall come, and he pray and drivel. 

And bleat and beg — my grip at his throat. 



179 



So THE B O URB ON HOR S E- THIEF. 

Good-bye, good friend ! Ah, never a truer 
Under the thigh of a soldier strode. 

Thus all drop out : grow fewer and fewer : 
There bleeds my best in the Rowan road. 

Speed on, brave boy ! the haven is yonder — 

A blue line under a rare red sky : 
Give them a roll of your heels in thunder 

Over the beds of the branches dry. 

A shot in the leg ! no matter, go on ! 

A little time and we end the chase : 
Farewell, fair night ! there is hope in the dawn — 

A sorry road, but a splendid race. 

My bridle arm ! well, go at your pleasure : 
Volley away, 3'e vulturing knaves ! 

Less than a mile at the front to measure, 
The yellow brush and the Yocum caves. 

Hit in the back I the gallop is over, 

These are the breaks of the Rowan hills ! 

It's hard to fall in front of the cover — 
Oh, God ! it isn't the shot that kills. 



NOTES 



It was not thought necessary to introduce these poems with 
any apologetic preface, as no apology ought to excuse an act of 
this kind ; but the author takes advantage of these notes to say 
that his verses are an accumulation of the rubbish of boyhood and 
youth, mixed with a few expressions of his later manhood. A 
demand for such a collection has existed among his friends for 
several years, and he has taken advantage of terms offered by his 
publisher to prepare this volume, without a further design than 
that of gratifying those who have manifested a personal interest in 
him and his writings. 

The poem entitled Lee, was hastily prepared after this book 
was ready for press. The subject was worthy a far higher tribute 
than any tongue or pen could offer ; but those who know the 
author will see in the lines a desire to do honor to the memory of 
the great and good man ; and what more can be done ? 

She appeared in the Yeovum, at Frankfort, Ky., in August last. 
It was severely handled by a writer in the Cincinnati Encjitirer, 
who thought " for the sake of letters," poetry of that sentiment 
had better not be encouraged. It was evident from the character 
of the paragraphs, that he who wrote was perhaps as appreciative 
of the lines as the author himself. The poem, if it may be called 
N i8i 



1 82 NOTES, 

such, was never intended for any other purpose than that o 
eliciting remark. It succeeded in this particular case, if* not ii. 
general. 

The poems Sixty-Five and Sixty-Six, were written in the 
years indicated, and published as New Year addresses. The 
apostrophe to Kentucky in the last poem, was occasioned by 
the circumstance of the repeal of an Expatriation law by the 
Legislature. 

The Moneyless Man appeared for the first time in 1855. 

The Bivouac pictures a condition of the Confederate soldiery 
as existing at Bull's Gap, in 1862. 

Under the Pines was produced on an outpost near the City 
of Richmond, one night in 1864. 

The lines entitled His Last Day, were written upon a few 
hours' notice, and read at the closing exercises of Rosemont 
Academy. Mr. W. W. Richeson, the tutor, had been in charge 
of a school at Maysville, Ky., for thirty-seven years, and this occa- 
sion was the last upon which he would officiate there in that 
capacity. He had taught the parents and grand-parents of some 
of his scholars, and was greatly beloved in the community. 

The lines addressed to Master Geo. W. Johnston, were 
written on his birthday. He was then twelve years of age, and 
had already distinguished himself by a long retention of a place 
on the " roll of honor " at an excellent school. His development 
of character now gives high promise of later worth. 

Fallen was one of the author's early efforts. It was first 
jHiblished in the Illustrated N'eivs at Richmond, Va., in 1862, but 
had been written several years before. 

The Little Boy Guiding the Plow was written at " Tally's 
Church," a small log-house in East Tennessee, in 1864. The 
condition of that section at the time was such as the poem 
represents. 



NOTES. IS 3 

A lady of Virginia gave the author a Nasturtium Flower in 
memory of Swain's conceit — 

"A spirit dwel's in every flower." 

She said a fairy inhabited the one she gave, which she hoped 
would inspire a poem. The verses were WTitten in camp that 
night. 

The Faith She Plighted Me is founded upon an actual 
circumstance. The unfortunate gentleman, however, still lives, 
having fairly forgotten his disappointment in the possession of a 
new love. 



PART II 

JiLCOB BIlO^\^N 

A.NID OTHER I>OE]MS 



Copyright, 1875, by 
HENRY T. STANTON, 



PREFACE 



If any apology is necessary for the gathering together of these 
articles in verse, it should come from another source than the 
autlior. Those who have honored me by reading my first vol- 
ume will discover a marked difference in the character of the two 
books, and it may be to my prejudice with some of them ; but 
a close observation has taught me that humor is more graciously 
received by the general reader than mere fine sentiment. If any- 
thing in these pages shall leave an impression that I have in- 
dulged a less worthy spirit, it must be regarded as growing out 
of an inability to make myself clearly understood. I have con- 
ceived no satire. I have given no individuality or special direc- 
tion to any line in the book, and those wlio know me best will 
readily acquit me of any design to be other than amiable and 
delicate in every allusion. 

My inclination has been, and still is to a far different accom- 
plishment, but like most persons who love niusic, some songs 
I sing for myself and some for the audience. These are for 
those who like them. 

HENRY T. STANTON. 



Is Tenderly Inscribed 

TO 

KIS SWEETHEART 

BY 

HER HUSBAND. 



JACOB BROWN 



AND OTHER POEMS 




JACOB BEOWN. 

IITH a most unhappy thinking, 
Forward bent, and deeper sinking 
In the cushions of his chair, 
Jacob Brown sits in his study. 
Silent, gloomy-browed, and moody — 
Quite a picture of despair. 

Out beyond him stand the steeples, 
O'er the sected, casted peoples. 

Of a slumb'rous, shadowed town, 
Reaching upward till their slimness 
Loses outline in the dimness 

Of a night-sky, clouded down. 
(189) 



190 JACOB BROWN. 

Still beyond— a patch of river, 
That the vista lends no quiver, 

Lieth like a leaden plate ; 
Whilst a straying, faint air dandles 
With the distant chamber-candles, 

And the street-lamps scintillate. 

From their brawling in the beakers, 
He has seen the pleasure-seekers 

Swaying homeward to their cells ; 
He has heard the startled hours. 
From the sounding, hollow towers, 

Give their death-cry on the bells. 

It is just the time for sinking 
Under great excess of thinking, 

And the secret time for tears ; 
It is just the time for sorrow 
To be yearning for the morrow, 

From the watch -place at her biers. 

Oh, ye million quiet sleepers. 

Who have closed your weary peepers 

On an evening's purple light ! 
Little reck ye of the number 
Of 3^our kind that can not slumber 

Through the horrors of the night ! 



JACOB BROWN. 191 

Little reck ye of the peoples 
Staring outward on the steeples 

Of your dreamy city's wards ; 
Men who haunt the silent places, 
With the shadow on their faces, 

Like an army's outer guards ! 

Jacob Brown had cast no missile 
At the social law's epistle, 

Nor had ever harmed a dove ; 
He was simply in the illness 
And the sleep-defying stillness 

Of a trying case of love. 

Many times had gone his distress 
To the proud heart of his mistress, 

In expression, honest, plain ; 
Many times he went appealing 
To her tenderness of feeling, 

And as many times in vain. 

Tho' the bee, in every hour, 
May forsake a chosen flower, 

Where the sweets are yielded not ; 
Tho' it go and nearly smother 
In the sweetness of another. 

With the chosen one forgot — 



192 JACOB BROWN. 

Jacob Brown's was not the nature 
To possess this vapid feature, 

And to seek another dear ; 
He had set his altar burning, 
And his sighs were ever turning 

All its incense out to her. 

With his fingers interlacing, 
There he sat the city facing, 

In a vacant staring o'er — 
Brooding on the dead devices 
He had brought to break her ices 

In the bitter days before. 

Whilst a heavy gloom invaded 
Every crevice there, and shaded 

From the world his deep despair, 
With a bitterness of thinking, 
He was slowly, deeper sinking 

In the cushions of his chair, 

When from out the chamber silent 
Of his prisoned heart, servilent. 

Came a most unhappy tone ; 
Something spoken to the inner : 
" I would give my soul to win her,'' 

'Twixt a whisper and a groan. 



JACOB BROWN. 193 

It is said tiie King of Evil 
Is exceeding free and civil 

To the heart that utters this, 
And His Majesty Infernal, 
To possess a soul eternal. 

Offers anything that 's his. 

Whilst it can not be that ladies 
Give their angel selves to Hades, 

For the wicked devil's sake. 
Yet, the fact we can not smother, 
That our pretty, primal mother 

Had a fixncy for the "snake." 

Jacob Brown was somewhat flurried, 
When he found that Satan hurried 

There to close a trade with him ; 
For he could not be mistaken. 
When he felt his shoulder shaken 

By a person rather dim. 

It was scarcely worth his turning. 
When there came a sort of burning 

From the presence at his back ; 
And it needed not the vision 
To perfect a quick decision : 

" It 's the Gentleman in Black !" 



19-4 JACOB BROWN. 

" You can have the lady, Jacob — 
I am come the trade to make up 

By a very fair device ; 
I have thought of something better, 
Since you want a wife, to get her 

At a less expensive price. 

" If you give me daily labor, 
For yourself, or for ^^our neighbor — 

Keep mo constantly at work — 
I will run the sooty legions 
Of my underlying regions 

With a deputy or clerk. 

"Just agree to keep me busy, 
Or to make me faint and dizzy 

With a task I can not do, 
And I'll never hope in Hades — 
Though you take a score of ladies. 

For an after-time with you. 

" But be sure you keep me going. 
Like a flood of water flowing 

In and out a fountain's bowl — 
Never pause a single minute — 
Give me work and keep me in it. 

Or I take and keep your soul." 



JACOB BROWN. 195 

Brown reflected just a little 
On the questionable title 

Under which he'd hold his wife — 
Just a little — then responded : 
"Sir, consider that we're bonded — 

It's a bargain, made for life." 
******* 
It may smack a bit of treason 
To the monarch Human Eeason, 

When we undertake to say 
Of the lesser things that burrow 
For their livings in the furrow : 

" They are truly better clay." 

That the very mole who scratches 
Underneath the paths and patches, 

Having neither point nor plan, 
Born, denied the eyes Elysian, 
In his perfect lack of v'sion, 

Is a greater thing than man ! 

It may smack, I jay, of treason 

To this reigning thing, called Eeason, 

Thus to ruflie up its pride ; 
Thus to bear its courtly ermine. 
To the shoulders of the vermin, 

And to put its rule aside ; 



196 JACOB BROWN. 

But the human mind that reaches 
Over cultivated stretches, 

To the very far-away. 
Often dedicates to sorrow 
All its glorified to-morrow, 

For an aureate to-day ; 

And this heritor of treasure. 
For a momentary pleasure, 

Barters off its sacred right, 
Sinks a joyous sunny after. 
For a single day of laughter. 

In an unremitting night : 

Men are truly born immortal, 
But they struggle to the portal 

With the blindness of the moles— 
They partake of all the features 
Of the under-going creatures. 

That have neither sight nor souls. 

Having attributes of power 
Far beyond the common hour 

Of their probatory time. 
They prefer the baser level 
Of a passage to the devil, 

To the path they ought to climb. 



JACOB BROWN. 197 

Kow an early day came, bringing 
That peculiar, pleasant ringing, 

From the sanctuary bells, 
And the Ganymedes of Autumn 
Gathered up her wines and brought 'cm 

From the outer-lying dells. 

And the very streets, in bustle. 
Kept a silken under-rustle 

In their red leaves bedded down- 
It was sighing Nature shedding 
All her splendor for the wedding 

Of the happy Jacob Brown. 

Now the priest is in the chancel. 
Ready robed to blot and cancel 

All of Jacob's sadder life ; 
And the twain come at the altar, 
There to stammer and to falter 

O'er the vows of man and wife. 

*' Who does give him here the woman?" 
This was cruel and inhuman 
To the happy, guilty man; 
For, he thought if any mortal 
Only knew— iho fact avouM startle, 
And the world forbid the ban. 



198 JACOB BROWN. 

He alone could tell the giver, 
But a sudden rush of fever 

Made his tongue exceeding dry, 
And the blood came up to blind him, 
Whilst a hollow voice behind him 

Uttered indistinctly—" I! " 

It was answered rather lowly, 
With an interval, and slowly, 

Like a whisper at his back ; 
Though the bride herself was rather 
Of opinion 'twas her father — 

'T was the " Gentleman in Black." 

But it came at last to marriage, 
And the bride went to her carriage, 

Down a smiling line of friends; 
Here and there a little blissing, 
In the way of squeezing, kissing. 

As the common wedding ends. 

Brown had quite ignored the devil. 
Whilst his joyous wedding revel 

Yet was only partly tlirough ; 
It was scarcely in the vesper, 
When he heard a hollow whisper : 

" Give me something now to do." 



JACOB BROWN. 

They were laughing then, and wining, 
In the pleasantry of dining, 

And the bride began to sing; 
Brown responded from his chalice : 
'' Go and build me now a palace 

Fit to entertain a king." 

Ah ! we seldom note a fleeting 
Of the moments at our eating, 

Though the dial shadow 's true— 
They were sitting still at dinner, 
When he came again — the sinner 

'- Give me something else to do." 

Brown was startled, but responded : 
" Are we not together bonded ? 

This is jesting now and fun. 
You must go and do my bidding- 
Build the palace for my wedding." 

Quoth the devil : " It is done !" 

" What !" said Brown, his pulse diminished, 
" Is it builded ? Is it finished ? 

Wall and roof, and ceil and floor ?" 
Said the devil : '' Jacob, truly, 
I have done your labor duly, 
And am waiting here for more." 



199 



200 JACOB BROWN. 

Brown was object then of pity. 
" Go," said he, " and build a city 

Full of palaces and piles — 
Build me columns, build me arches. 
Plant me cedars, lindens, larches, 

On a hundred thousand miles !" 

When the company was fleeing, 
And at twelve o'clock the tea-ing 

Found the party very slim \ 
When the timid bride, uncertain. 
Sought the hiding of a curtain 

In her chamber's shadow dim. 

Brown was sitting there and boasting 
Of her beauty in the toasting 

With the still-remaining few. 
Full of joy, and all a flutter, 
When he heard the devil utter : 

" Give me something else to do." 

This was torment dreadful, horrid, 
And the atmosphere grew torrid 

Though the Autumn night was late. 
"Am I waking? Is it real? 
Can he take a grand ideal 

And so readily create?" 



JACOB BROnW. 201 

At his elbow darkly standing, 
Satan waited his commanding, 

And his shoulder leaning o'er, 
Whispered : "Wasting time is pity; 
I have built your splendid city — 

Done my duty — give me more !" 

" Demon ! go and take the motion 
From the pulses of the ocean — 

Go and make the billows still ! 
Go to all the whitened beaches, 
Tell the sands in all their reaches — 

Count the leaves on every hill." 

Thus the spirit kept him worried. 
Always haunted, always hurried. 

Till a twelvemonth struggled by ; 
Finding work to give this sinner, 
Kept him wearing thin and thinner — 

He was ready near to die. 

Worst of all, unhaj^py error ! 
Brown, too late, had found a terror 

In his costly lady's tongue; 
In their little year of marriage 
She had quite another carriage, 

And another song she sung. 



202 JACOB BBOWN. 

It was now the " old, old story," 
Of a woman in the glory 

Of her kingdom over man ; 
She had passed the time of wiling, 
Of her sunlight and her smiling, 

And the reigning-day began. 

With the woman always rating, 
Always scolding him and prating 

Of the gloomy life he led, 
Was it strange the w^retched fellow 
Should be growing thin and sallow, 

And be longing to be dead ? 

It was just about the coming 
Of a mellow Autumn gloaming, 

With its dewy, fruity air ; 
Jacob Brown again was sinking, 
With a bitterness of thinking. 

In the cushions of his chair. 

Out before him rose the steej^lcs 
Over all the happy peoples 

Of the underlying town ; 
He was gazing, gloomy, moody, 
When within his silent study 

Stalked the stately Lady Brown. 



JACOB BROWN. 203 

Always moping, always sighing — 
You are very slow at dying — 

Will it never, never be ? 
I would joy to see you buried — 
Every day that we are married 

Is a misery to me." 

He had scarce attention centered, 
When the devil slowly entered 

From a gloo^ny passage through, 
And, with true politeness, waiting 
For a pause about her prating — 

" Give my something else to do ! " 

Jacob rather liked the civil. 
Quiet manner of the devil, 

When his wife about him hunc:, 
So he answered rather slowly. 
In a whisper, timid, lowly : 

" Please to stop the lady's tongue ! " 

But, alas ! the spell was ended. 
And the devil, shocked, offended, 

Out the open window flew ; 
He was fairly there defeated, 
For he groaned as he retreated : 

" That is icork I can not do ! " 



202 JACOB BBOWN. 

It was now the " old, old story," 
Of a woman in the glory 

Of her kingdom over man ; 
She had passed the time of wiling, 
Of her sunlight and her smiling. 

And the reigning-day began. 

With the woman always rating, 
Always scolding him and prating 

Of the gloomy life he led, 
Was it strange the wretched fellow 
Should be growing thin and sallow, 

And be longing to be dead ? 

It was just about the coming 
Of a mellow Autumn gloaming, 

AVith its dewy, fruity air ; 
Jacob Brown again was sinking, 
With a bitterness of thinking. 

In the cushions of his chair. 

Out before him rose the stee|)lc8 
Over all the happy peoples 

Of the underlying town ; 
He was gazing, gloomy, moody. 
When within his silent study 

Stalked the stately Lady Brown. 



JACOB BROWN. 203 

" Always moping, always sighing — 
You are very slow at dying — 

Will it never, never be ? 
I would joy to see you buried — 
Every day that we are married 

Is a misery to me." 

He had scarce attention centered, 
When the devil slowly entered 

From a gloorfU}^ passage through, 
And, with true politeness, waiting 
For a i^ause about her prating — 

" Give my something else to do ! " 

Jacob rather liked tlie civil, 
Quiet manner of the devil, 

When his wife about him hung. 
So he answered rather slowly. 
In a whisper, timid, lowly : 

" Please to stop the lady's tongue 1 " 

But, alas ! the spell was ended. 
And the devil, shocked, offended, 

Out the open window flew ; 
He was fairly there defeated, 
For he groaned as he retreated : 

" That is work I can not do ! " 



206 OUT OF THE OLD TEAR INTO THE NEW. 

Fuller the coveys than ever before — 
Hare in the warren, fish at the shore — 
The seed of the rag-weed falls full fast, 
But trapping days of the boy are past. 
The snows may come, but free is the hare 
To hold his track in the hiding tare^ — 
The hare-race now with the boy is done ; 
The hound -race hard with the man begun. 

Aye, square 3- our shoulders and stroke your chin. 
The days of labor are crowding in. 
You play no hide-and-seek in the mows ; 
You beat no way with the browsing cows — 
Ho ! for the sickle and scythe and spade ! 
Into the sun -heat out of the shade — 
Start in the furrow, travel it true 
Out of the Old Year into the :N"ew. 

II. 

Out of her under-coat, red and small, 
And out of her bib and her overall ; 
Hiding the rise of her ankles fair 
With trailing drape of a fuller wear ; 
Binding her breast to steadier place 
In silken bonds of the corset-lace. 
The girl-child endeth her days of bliss, 
And Woman comes from the chrysalis. 



OUT OF THE OLD YEAR INTO THE NEW. 2^\ 

What shall she do in her life begun ? — 
Gather the buds that blow in the sun ? 
Fashion her garlands to quaint design 
Under the glint of the fielder's tine? 
Loiter the meadows and romp and cry, 
As the mower goes in the golden rye? 
Blossom of girlhood ! What shall she do 
Out of the Old Year into the New? 

Go to the brook for the yestreen girl, 

With her sundown hat and leaf-brown curl ; 

Go to the glass of the opal lymph 

And widen your eyes, oh, new-born nymph ! 

The meadow is sweet with fresh-cut hay, 

The odor the same as yesterday, 

But never you '11 tread, with singing blithe, 

The scented bed of the mower's scythe. 

You loosen your zone and turn your eye 
To gleaning girls in the golden rye ; 
But tighten it now, and turn away. 
It 's only a glimpse of yesterday — 
The distaff stands in the window-light, 
There's weft to weave in the warp to-night; 
The rye-field way is not for you, 
Out of the Old Year into the New. 



208 OUT OF THE OLD YEAR INTO THE NEW. 

III. 

Woman and man, at the start of life, 

A sunburnt spouse and a peach -cheeked wife, 

Kneeling and swearing the words that bind 

The twain in bonds of the archer blind ; 

Plucking the flowers they nursed so true 

In the gloaming walk where wild ones grew ; 

A man and woman with life begun. 

Who were two but now, and now but one ;— 

What will they do at their life's outstart ? — 
Meet in the meadow and smile and part? 
VYalk in the sundown aisles of the day, 
Study the shades of the twilight gray? 
Eamble the fields where the roses are 
When the foot falls dry and sun shines fair? 
What will the twain in the blood-rite do 
Out of the Old Year into the New ? 

When flax is ripe for the spinning-wheel 
There 's nothing left for the honey-meal ; 
In other bloom where the dew food lies 
Must loiter the bees with laden thighs — 
Now gather the flax and break it bright, 
The distaff's still in the window-light; 
Gather and garner it under roof, 
For still the warp is waiting the woof. 



OUT OF THE OLD YEAR INTO THE NEW. 209 

Be true to your plow and sweep your scythe 
With sinew strong and muscle lithe; 
A cradle rocks on the homestead floor, 
One stranger there, and a chance for more ; 
Go deep in the sod and turn full fair. 
For youth is coming the yield to share. 
Mother and father, there 's more to do 
Out of your Old Year into your New. 

IV. 

Master and dame, at the close of life, 
A toil-bent spouse and a child-worn wife ; 
Sitting at eve in their westward sloop, 
Watching the sun to the westward droop ; 
Sitting alone, in their oaken chairs. 
Waiting the twilight, gray as their hairs; 
Olden and worn and ending the run 
Of days like that of the dying sun. 

Ah, still, as the sim that leaves the plain, 
They sink at the verge, to rise again ; 
Making the course from gold to gray, 
They turn the arc of a single day. 
And sink in the eve to rise again. 
In world of beauty, or world of bane. 
Mother and father, what world for you 
Out of the Old Day into New? 



210 OUT OF THE OLD YEAR INTO THE NEW. 

Look to the life that is laid before. 

In fields beyond on the faint-lined shore ; 

It 's not a measure of labor now, 

A question of bread, and beaded brow ; 

A question of fields, and buds, and bloom. 

Of days of shining, and days of gloom ; 

You '11 answer the Maker's graver one, 

Not what shall you do — What have you done ? 

Ah, woman and man, there lies the test 

For human souls of their final rest — 

AVhat are your hopes and what are your fears V 

What have you done in the dry, dead years? 

What do you claim as a just reward 

At the hand of Him — the gracious Lord ? 

Mercy and love be given to you, 

Out of the Old Life into the New. 




DOWN THE EOAD. 

HE overhead blue of the summer is gone, 
The overhead canopy gray'd ; 
The damp and the chill of the winter is on, 

And the dust of the highway laid. 
I sit in the glare of the simmering beech, 

At the hearth of the old abode, 
And I look with a sigh at the comfortless reach 
Of the farm-lands down the road. 

The wind is astir in the cam]3 of the grain, 

The tents of the grenadier corn ; 
The sentinel stalk at the break of the lane 

Hathawearisome look and lorn ; 
Yet it has n't been long since into the blades 

The sap of the summer-time flowed. 
When I and my ox-team loitered the shades 

Of the oak-trees down the road. 
(211) 



212 DOWN THE ROAD. 

There was ii' t a cla^^ that I did n' t go by 

The house at the swell of the hill — 
The cattle had broken the close of the rye, 

Or something was wanted at mill ; 
And Kitty — she stood in the porch at her wheel, 

And the gold to her shoulder flowed ; 
And what did I care for the " turn of the meal,' 

Or the rye-field down the road? 

In the seeding-time, when I followed the plow 

And furrowed the mellow ground, 
There was n't that labor-like sweat of the brow 

That honestcr husbandry crowned ; 
For the fairy was there at her wheel and spun 

As I plowed or planted or sowed. 
And my labor was never right faithfully done 

In the grain-fields down the road. 

And then in the heat of the harvesting-da}', 

When the sickle and scythe went through, 
It was only the veriest time for play 

That ever a harvester knew ; 
For there was the maid at the humming wheel yet 

Just fronting the swath that I mowed, 
And the scythe ran slow, for my eyes were set 

On the old porch down the road. 



DOWN THE ROAD. 213 

Then the autumn at last came into tlio year, 
Aii'l life took' a mellower mood : 

We gathered the grain, and the quail with a whin- 
Went out of the field to the wood. 

And I tried to be steady and brisk ; but i-till 
Jt was haid 1o be plying the goad 

When my indolent oxen balked at the hill 
By the farm-houKe down th(? road. 

Now Kitt}' has (!yes of the tendcrest blue, 

And hair of the glossiest gold, 
Jiut never a word of my loving so true 

'J'o Kitty have ever I told. 
And the winter is here and the winter may go 

And still I can carry the load — 
The green of the spring cometh after the snow 

In the grain-fields down the road. 




WEEDS. 

ENT at the gate in her weeds, 
A trifle reduced and whiter-- 
Some say of her heart : " It bleeds ; " 
Some say of her heart : " It 's lighter 

A woman of mind and soul, 

And strong to the utmost straining — 
How should I know if her dole 

Be dole, or only a feigning ? 

Once I was weak to believe, 
And said : " God pity us madam ! 

Tou be a blossom of Eve, 
And I be a scion of Adam." 

The tide in her cheek ran red — 
Eed as the East in the morning. 
" Sir, I be a wife," she said. 

In passion, and pride, and scorning. 
(214) 



WEEDS. 215 

Forbidden, the ripe, fair fruit — 

Forbidden, but near to reaching. 
I stood in the garden mute, 

Abashed and stung with the teaching. 

A queen in her weeds is she. 

By the gate, in shadow leaning. 
Now tell me if mask it be, 

Or grief in the real meaning ? 

I pass on the other side, 

I make an obesiance to her — 
I wonder if he who died 

Was wiser than I, and — knew her. 




GOING TO SCHOOL. 

HIS knowledge wc find in the flow of the street, 
From faces wo see and from figures we meet, 
That men in their callow, their ri2)ening and rime 
Arc under the rod of the pedagogue Time ; 
And this we deduce, by a logical rule : 
However wc go, we are going to school. 

Now, here is a brown little urchin of ten, 
Half hidden from sight in the sea of the men ; 
A stead^^-eyed, stout little lad in his looks. 
Tied up like his burdensome bundle of books, 
So mitted and buttoned that any poor fool 
May see, at a glance, he is going to school. 

Then here is a chap with a worrying stock 
Of wonderful wrangles from Bacon and Locke, 
Who, having been polished and plated and pearled, 
Somewhere at a college, comes out in the world, 
And, mixing with men in the slime of its pool. 
Is forced to admit he is going to school. 

(216) 



GOING TO SCHOOL. 217 

And here is a priest, with the saintliest face — 
A pauper in pocket, a Croesus in grace ; 
ile enters the pulpit, and opens the book, 
As wise as an owl and as grave as a rook ; 
But spite of the penitents bent at his stool. 
And though he may teach, he is going to school 

And there is a bridegroom with beautiful bride — 

The fact of her beauty is never denied ; 

He 's i^roud of his purjDOse and promise in life, — 

Is proud of his manhood, and proud of his wife : 

How long will he be under petticoat rule 

Till he says to himself, " I am going to school !" 

And here is a chance to look into the glass 
Of the wearisome eye of a woman you pass ; 
Her purpose is gone and her promise is dead, 
Her life is a skein of the slenderest thread, 
And sorrow is winding it fast on a spool — 
Her husband 's a sot, and she 's going to school. 

But here is a person — no longer a slave 

To the pedagogue Time — at the brink of the grave. 

His course in the school of the world he has run. 

His summer is over, his session is done ; 

And now, as he dies in the driftings at Yule, 

His children may say, " He is going to school !" 



'A MENSA ET THOEO." 



jOTH of us guilty and both of ns sad — 
And this is the end of passion ! 
And people are silly — people are mad, 

Who follow the lights of Fashion ; 
For she was a belle, and I was a beau. 

And both of us giddy-headed — 
A priest and a rite — a glitter and show, 
And this is the way we wedded. 

There were wants we never had known before, 

And matters we could not smother ; 
And poverty came in an open door, 

And love went out at another : 
For she had been humored — I had been spoiled, 

And neither was sturdj^-hearted — 
Both in the ditches and both of us soiled, 

And this is the way we parted. 
(218) 




MY MOTHEK AND I. 

E were finishing tea — my mother and I — 
Exactly at half after eight ; 
The noise in the kettle went down to a sigh, 

The muffin grew cold on the plate ; 
I looked in the cup as I toyed with a spoon, 

Attempting to balance it clear, 
And said to myself: " It 's the last afternoon 

Of the very last day of the year ; 
I '11 see if my fortune — for better, for worse — 

By drops of the tea will be told," 
And then, like a boy, I began to rehearse 

What I tried when I was n't so old. 

"Why, John," said my mother, a manifest smile 

Just lighting her lips and her eyes, 
"You seem to be dropping a very long while, 
The handle is slow to arise." 
My arm gave a lurch and it flooded the bowl. 

And down to the bottom it fell ; 
I 'm forty ! but farther than that from the goal, 
If tea-drippings honestly tell. 
(219) 



220 MF MOTHER AND I. 

" No use for such folly at my time of life." 

Then I quietly said in rejDly : 
" It is n't for me to be taking a wife 

As long as it 's — mother and I.''* 

* 

Then something got under my lid like a mote ; 

I rose at recalling my sire, 
And parting the points of a pigeon-tailed coat, 

Extended my j)alms to the fire. 
Then one after one of the last forty years, 

I soberly mustered them up ; 
A little of laughter, a little of tears. 

And the fortunes I tried in the cup. 
My mother, still dreamily keeping her seat. 

Was thinking, no doubt of the one 
Who left her, a stalk of the yellowing wheat. 

To ripen alone in the sun. 

The picture is clearly domestic, I know, 

And homely and common withal, 
A celibate, just in his midsummer glow, 

A widow, somewhat in her fall ; 
She is sixty and past, but having the air 

Of one who had reigned in her day — 
A trifle subdued, and the dusk of her hair 

Just broken with glintings of gray. 



3IF MOTHER AND I. 221 

My mother's my sweetheart, my glory, my queen, 

My only true woman in life ; 
I wonder sometimes what an ass I have been 

To ever have dreamed of a wife. 

I said it was half after eight, and the eve 

Of the very last day of the year ; 
The ghosts of my life at the time, I believe, 

1 had soberly called to appear. 
A fig for the past ! Let the closets of time 

Forever their skeletons hide ; 
There 's nothing to gain from the mold and the grime, 

And the ghosts of the things that have died. 
So, breaking the chain of my mother's duress 

In the prison of days that were dead, 
I gave her the query : " Pray, what is your guess 

Concerning the twelvemonth ahead ? " 

It staggered her some, but she rallied at last, 
And the sweet of her smiling arose ; 
' Well, John, if you 're wanting your horoscope cast, 
I 'm a proper old witch, I suppose " — 
That's she, on the laughing and bantering side, 
AYhen she passes from winter to spring. 
" Do n't trouble yourself about me," I replied, 
" For my destiny's not in your ring ; 



222 3IV MOTHER AND I. 

" I come to the brink of your beaker of age 

For a drop of its wine's overcharge, 
'A cross on your palm' for an honest presage 
Of the world and the peoj^le at large." 

" In any event, you Tvould have me a witch 

Whilst yet in the flush of my prime. 
Ah, well, we are both of us knotting a stich, 

To-night, in the stocking of time. 
And John, let me say of the stitches just here, 

Their making's perfection of art ; 
Unless there's a flaw in the yarn of the year 

We never can tell them apart. 
I look on the stitch we are finishing now, 

By others as evenly laid, 
And feel it's a trifle to estimate how 

The stitch of to-morrow 11 be made. 

" That's witchery, fair as the best you have known, 

And as true as the best you will see ; 
From nature to-day it is readily shown 

What nature to-morrow will be." 
Then, leaving the table, she came to a seat 

In the cushioned old rocker of state, 
And crossing her arms and extending her feet, 

Looked musingly into the grate. 



MF MOTHER AND I. 223 

She burnished a thought I refused to express. 
When I banished the past from my brain, 

Tho' cleverly said, I am free to confess 
It was not what I hoped to obtain. 

Continuing then : " It may do very well 

To be earnestly looking ahead 
For the something to buy, or something to sell, 

In the matter of making our bread. 
We 're not like the sparrows that gather the crumbs 

Sown over the snow in the street; 
Wc put in our fingers to j^ull out the plums 

From the pie of the Earth — if we eat. 
We may not foretell what the season will bring 

B}^ a rule of the previous yield ; 
A chill may go down to the germ in the spring, 

Or summer may ashen the field. 

■ I do not refer to the physical world, 

With its bees, and its ants, and its moles ; 
But the surface of time that 's blackened and pearled 

By a tireless passage of souls. 
The age, to my mind, is no better, no worse, 

Than it was in the century gone ; 
Though Ave act in this year, 'tis to simply rehearse 

For the play of a year coming on. 



224 MY MOTHER AND I. 

" The Father of All is abroad everywhere, 
But the bad ' little master ' is free ; 
There 's evil and good in proportionate share, 
And long as we live it will be. 

" Now, mark it, my son, there are sections of Earth 

In excellence greatly advanced ; 
But equally, places much lessened in worth 

With ignorance sadly enhanced. 
We fluctuate, some in the scale, it is true — 

How could we be mortal without it ? — 
But taking the whole of our pilgrimage through, 

There 's always a sameness about it. 
What guess could I make on the twelvemonth ahead 

Exce2)t on the basis of others? 
Men know that their bodies in time will be dead, 

Because they have buried their brothers." 

Then mother looked earnestly back in the blaze, 

And studied the glow of the coals ; 
No doubt they gave pictures of beautiful days 

To her, but to me they were ghouls. 
So I turned and abraded a match on the wall, 

And I lighted a Cuba cigar. 
And I said to myself: " There 's a doubt after all 

As to what sort of creatures we are. 



MF MOTHER AND I 



225 



" Here 's mother, so good that the angels above 
Might safely kneel down at her feet : 
And I, of her blood, and her life, and her love, 
Not more than the dust of the street." 




THE SPKING. 

|UT of the bill there issued a spring, 
And into a moss'd retreat ; 
Lucent and cool, with eddy and swing, 
It came at our feet. 

Yiolet beds a trifle a-stir, 

And stray leaves driven about; 

A low, sweet noise to me and to her 
As the stream ran out. 

Two great broad elms beclouded the sky 
And meted the ether through ; 

What care to us if a midnight dye 
Flowed over the blue ? 

Tremulous arms that circled me there, 

And pluvial eyes afloat ; 
And wanton tides of vagabond hair — 

They flooded my throat ! 
(226) 



THE SPRING. 



227 



Then down the way the waters went. 

Together went I and she ; 
And on, and on, we followed the bent 

Till into the sea. 

The wide, high sea ! Oh, frail are the helms, 

And heavy the billows' fling ! 
Oh, to go back to the sjDreading elms 

Where issued the spring ! 




TEUE VEESION. 

LITTLE vine about an oak 
Its lissom thread has run. 
To find, beyond the shadow-cloak, 
A fruitage in the sun. 

A scapeling from the prison-ground— 
Through heat and shower free — 

IN'ow tenderly it twines around 
The roughness of the tree; 

And soon upon the upper air 

Its pliant jesses swing. 
Till, in the shine, it comes to bear, 

The children of the Spring. 

Proud mother to the multibloom, 

The canopy and cloak — 
That floods with such a rare perfume 

The precincts of the oak. 
(228) 



TRUE VERSION. 229 



On steely wings the yellow bees 
Ply in and out the place ; 

The oriole there shakes the lees 
Of blossoms to her face. 



Now mellow Autumn days are here, 
The ripening days and brown ; 

The leaves upon the trees are sere, 
The limbs are leaning down — 

In clusters hang the winy globes 

Above the nether way, 
The vine is in its purple robes. 

The tree is in its gray. 

Then Winters pass, and Sfiring on Spring, 
With blossoms blown and shed. 

The vine has grown a massy thing— 
The sturdy oak is dead— 

And silent, on the greening earth, 

A weighted monarch lies, 
The proudest of her forest birth. 

The noblest one that dies. 



230 



TRUE VERSION. 



No longer in the golden shine 
Her glowing life shall be, 

Until the widowed arms shall twine 
Another fated tree. 

And this, in season, too, shall die. 

And all that she encloaks ; 
And still shall come the widow's cry 

"Bring on your sturdy oaks ! " 




DEAWING IT FINE. 

JIlN" a shining cloud of meshes, 
^^ Where a marge of Summer rushes 

To a noisy water dipt, 
Dwelt a prim, maternal S]3ider, 
With her grim, brown spouse beside her, 
Like two mummies in a crypt. 

And except, perhaps, the shimmer 
Of a sunset's silver tremor, 

There was not the slightest breath — 
Not the faintest undulation, 
In the pendant, hooded station, 

Where they simulated death. 

Every tentacle enfolded, 

Much as if the parts were molded. 

Or were carven so from stone ; 
There they sat, without emotion, 
Staring down a woven ocean. 

From the funnel of their cone. 
(231) 



232 DRAWING IT FINE 

— When the dry, drawn spider's forces 
Puts its legion pulsate courses 

Thus successfully to rout, 
Well, indeed, may Science marvel 
How it is this crimson travel 

Of the venous-tide goes out. 

We have no such tragic actors 
As these adept tissue-factors — 

Since they never rant or rave — 
And there 's not a thing in nature 
Wearing such a perfect feature 

Of the unrelenting grave. 

True, they act this tableau merely, 
But they mimic death so nearly — 

Being rigid there and still — 
That the blinded insect rushes 
DoAvn the silence of their meshes 

To escape some lesser ill. 

So these consorts sat in quiet, 
Watching ever for the diet 

To their finished talent due; 
Waiting patiently and stilly 
For the winged things and silly 

That were intermitting through. 



DRA WING IT FINE. 233 

By-and-by, upon her vision 
Came a light of clear decision, 

And the sober matron spoke 
(She had something like that human, 
Active impulse of a woman. 

In her tongue — the common joke) : 

" Having trained our girl and taught her, 
As a spider should her daughter, 

All the proper things in life, 
It is time she had our blessing — 
Though the thought is sore distressing — 

As some decent person's wife. 

" I am sure the maid is able, 
Now, to run her line of cable 

Unassisted, from the spool ; 
And as weaver, and as spinner. 
That there's more than common in her, 

I believe, upon my soul ! 

" Only yesterday, I saw her, 
For our neighbor, Mistress Drawer, 

Darning places in her net; 
Busy there in giving issue 
To the finest solar tissue 

I have ever noticed yet. 



234 DRA WING IT FINE. 

" She is skilled in all the graces 
Of the most exquisite laces — 

Quite invisible to me — 
And I think such work would kill me, 
With my eyes so very filmy, 

I could never, never see. 

" There 's a wanton mass of bushes 
Just above our line of rushes, 

Where to si:)read the maiden's net ; 
So, good man, though sad to miss her, 
Let us bless the child and kiss her. 

Whilst our lives are steady yet." 

And the grim old spider listened. 
Till upon his optics glistened 

Something not unlike a tear ; 
And with quite a man's agreeing 
To a woman's way of seeing, 

Answered : " As you think, my dear. 

Then the mother called her daughter 
From a-sporting on the water. 

In a little bay below ; 
And the ladylike young spider 
Came and settled down beside her. 

To the sorrow of her beau ; 



DBA WING IT FINE. 235 

For she ceased at once her skating, 
Left the gallant there awaiting, 

Made a courtesy and flew — 
Just as every little woman, 
When she hears her mother summon, 

Ought undoubtedly to do. 

It was charming in the tunnel, 
Of their silver-sided funnel, 

Thus the family to see ; 
Sitting close to one another 
Were the father and the mother 

And the daughter — happy three I 

There their plans were all unfolded, 
And the maiden's future molded 

In the fancy of the dame ; 
In the matted brier trellis 
She should have her silver palace 

And be given up to Fame. 

But alas ! like every other 

Living thing — that has a mother — 

How these fancies went astray! 
All the goodly things we nurture 
For the overburdened future 

Pass too fleetingly away. 



236 DRA WING IT FINE. 

So it was, this callow weaver, 
When her mamma let her leave her, 

Went a little bit too fast ; 
Though she made a fair beginning 
With her cunning kind o' spinning, 

It was not a kind to last. 

She was full of life, and agile, 

But her shining threads were fragile 

And defective in their length ; 
For she made her woofing wider 
Than her warping justified her, 

And the fabric wanted strength. 

We have seen a thousand ladies 
On a rapid way to Hades 

By this very common force. 
And exactly like the spinner 
They persist in drawing finer, 

When they ought to draw it coarse. 

'T is peculiar to the human — 
Where the debutant 's a woman — 

To exceed the parent marge ; 
She rejects the frugal spirit 
She should properly inherit. 

And essays to "go it large." 



DRA WING IT FINE. 287 

And the rule is just as certain, 
When it 's time to lift the curtain 

On the drama of her days, 
She has found her light ambition 
At the margin of perdition, 

Through the saddest sort o' ways. 

Now, the highest aim that filled her — 
And the very thinner that killed her — 

Was her foolish love for show; 
For our pulsing spider lady 
Could n't keep her palace shady 

In the brier-patch below. 

But she made her nicest hitches 
On some pendulating switches, 

That her glory might be seen ; 
And she loitered with her lover 
All its silver teiTacc over, 

With the leisure of a queen. 

And, as might have been expected, 
She was readily detected 

By a bandit living near. 
For the wily robber sparrow, 
Coming downward like an arrow, 

Made a quiet meal of her. 



238 JDRA WING IT FINE. 

And the prim maternal spider, 

With her grim, brown spouse beside her, 

Sits a silent mummy yet; 
And the breaking of each morrow 
Brings her such a meed of sorrow, 

As she never can forget. 

She is full of sad ui^heavals. 
From the crater of her evils, 

For the wrong she did her child, 
When she taught her only graces 
In the art of making laces. 

By a vanity beguiled. 

So the two unhappy tenants 
Of the cone are doing penance. 

And their bosoms both are wrung ; 
He has chronic gout to bother, 
And this wicked, wicked mother 

Has paralysis of tongue. 



MUEDER. : 

I 4 IS wine of life, drawn past its lees, j 

Had stained the grasses red, j 

Where, under laden date-palm trees, ! 

A man laid newly dead. 

The motley of a summer day— 

The shadow set in light — 
With sharp-defined existence lay ; 

Imprinted on the sight. 

A hush was in the fruity bloom, J 

Where late attrition made ^ j 

An atmosphere of spice-perfume < 

The distances pervade. I 

i 
The Naiad of a lucent brook j 

That loitered in the place. 

Went outward with a frighted look 

Upon a whited face. 

(239) 



240 MURDER. 

An utter, utter stillness there ; 

A silence and a pain ; 
A terror in the marching air, 

That halted by the slain. 

The world was young and virgin then 
To common blight and ill, 

And Nature, in the outraged glen, 
Stood, horrified and still. 

And this was fruit from Eden-seeds 
In serpent-trailings lain ! 

The meek and mild-way'd Abel bleeds 
Whilst, pulseful, wanders Cain. 

The dove and robin only keep 

A record of that day. 
The world did pause awhile and weep 

Above the mortal clay ; 

But soon the world went on, went by 
The rotting gold-haired thing — 

The very wind came gleeful nigh — 
The brook learned soon to sing. 



MURDER. 241 

"With song the dove was sweetly blest, 

And down the long-ago, 
The robin held upon its breast 

The driftings of the snow ; 

But under Abel's date-palm trees 

The dove forgot its tone, 
And since, o'er other lands and seas. 

It makes its jilaintive moan ; 

And there, when pulsing sadly, stood 

The robin by the slain. 
His plumage caught from Abel's blood 

Its never-fading stain. 

Thus Deity hath marked the crime 

For cycles passing round — • 
The blood that flowed in Adam's time 

Is crying from the ground — 

For this is w^hy the dove declares 

Its tearful, sad unrest ; 
And this is why the robin wears 

The red upon its breast. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

ET me go back to the maze 

Where light to my life returns ; 
Let me lift out of their urns 
Ashes of splendorful days. 

Oh, days of the far-gone years ; 

Oh, days of mist-hidden time — 
Days of the rust and the rime, 

Be risen above your biers ! 

Give me the scepter again ; 

Give me the ermine and crown ; 

Press the front outward and down, 
Make my lost royalty plain. 

1 fall in a life so mean — • 

I sink in the slough of this ; 
Oh, give me the days of bliss, 

Make me again a queen! 
(242) 



THE EED CEOSS. 

IE Knights, beyond the river there, 
And down the distance gray, 
In courtly robes, with saber bare — 

A soldier takes his way — 
The scion of a royal house, 

A prince of knightly signs. 
Has gone among the sentinels 
That tread the Persian lines. 

A mission from the broken swords, 

And bended heads of them 
That hold the ruined walls and wards, 

Of wrecked Jerusalem. 
Now mark the stately front he bears — 

His martial sway and grace — 
A heart that feels — a soul that dares — 

Is speaking in his face. 
(243) 



244 THE RED CROSS. 

Ah, proud Zerubbabel, take heed — 

The Persian guards advance, 
The countersign must serve thy need, 

And not thy princely glance — 
Grasp well thy sword and be prepared 

To meet the 'larum cry, 
" An enemy ! What ho ! The guard ! 

An enemy — a spy ! " 

Now clash like flints their sabers' steel 

In jealous ward and pass, 
Our Prince has made the Persians feel 

Through corselet and cuirass ; 
But not his single arm can hold 

The numbers there at bay — 
With half his prowess yet untold 

The guards have gained the day. 

And from the royal shoulders there 

They strip the em'rald down. 
They mock the knightly prince and heir 

Unto the Jewish crown. 
They deck him in the meaner gown 

That holds the prison stains, 
And weigh his lordl}^ person down 

With shackles and with chains. 



THE RED CROSS. 245 

And there, before their sovereign lord, 

Within his presence hall, 
Zeriibbabel attends the guard, 

The proudest of them all. 
With peerless brow and steady eye — 

His only visage known — 
lie fronts the monarch seated hi^h, 

Darius on his throne. 

Well may the Knights that stand around, 

Their plumed helmets raise. 
Beneath the robe, the court has found 

Another royal gaze ; 
And though, in chains, Zerubbabel 

The meaner soldiers bring — 
The truly great, may pause to tell — 

Now which is here the King. 

Then from his place Darius speaks, 

And in the kinder way, 
Of one whose mental vision seeks 

A long-departed day. 
He calls to mind the early friend. 

That knew his tender youth, 
The one whose higher aim and end 

Was in the holy truth. 



246 'J'HE RED CROSS. 

But ermined garb and scepter strong 

Had made the King forget, 
That he who scorned to do a wrong 

Held steady purpose yet ; 
And to Zerubbabel he said, 

"We knew thee once of old, 
A goodly Prince — a royal head, 

A knightl}^ man and bold, 

" A member of that mystic clan, 

A Mason firm and true. 
The highest type of noble man, 

A kingdom ever knew ; 
Now give us here the secret things 

Thy silent brothers hold. 
And thou shalt be the friend of kings 

In purple and in gold." 

Then sudden flush'd the Prince's face, 

And proudly 'rose his head. 
As if to scorn the shameful grace 

In what Darius said ; 
"My sovereign master, know that I 

Am subject to thy will, 
Then banish me, or hid me die — 

I hold my honor still." 



THE RED CROSS. 247 

Then ran the blood in kingly veins 

With rapid pulse and play — 
" What ho ! the guard ! strike off his chains ! 

Strike off his chains, I say, 
Now give him back the eni'rald thing 

And sword of honor bright, 
And make it known the Prince and King 

Shall banquet here to-night. 

" Zerubbabel, thou teachest now 

The lesson of our youth, 
The grandest crown for kingly brow 

Is courage, honor, truth ! 
Now make thy secret wishes known 

The dearest and the best. 
And by our sovereign word and throne 

Is granted thy request." 

" Oh, King, my trodden people there 

In ruined arches kneel, 
And pray thee in thy might to spare 

From adversary's steel ; 
And, Sire, I come from ruined halls, 

To crave a boon for them — 
That thou wilt build the domes and walls, 

Of old Jerusalem." 



A SPECIAL PLEA. 

JHI^UE and I together sat 
"JJ*" Beside a running brook ; 
The little maid put on my hat, 
And I the forfeit took. 

Desist," she cried : " It is not right, 
I'm neither wife nor sister; " 

But in her eye there shone such light, 
That twenty times I kiss'd her. 

(248) 




THE MIDNIGHT EOSE. 

HEEE is a flower that loves to shun 
The kisses of the morning sun ; 
There is a rose that never knew 
The sparkle of the morning dew. 

Bat w^hen the mellow evening dies 
Upon the glinting summer skies, 
It gently breaks the sepal close 
And opens out — a perfect rose. 

Oh, ye who wander down the days. 
In crocus, fern, and fennel ways. 
There has not broken on your sight 
The rose that glorifies the night ! 

Go call the buttercup that yields 
Its gold florescence to the fields — 
Go gather all your noons disclose, 
But leave to me my midnight rose ! 
(249) 



. SELF-SACEIFICE. 

Si T is in that edge of Winter 

f When the frost its silver splinter 

Throws along the window-glass; 
When ui:)on the crusty border, 
In a cruel, sad disorder, 

Hang the brown lines of the grass- 
It is in that time for sighing, 
When the dry things underlying. 

Give their crisping to the feet ; 
When the w^recks of vernal races, 
With their painted, brazen faces, 

Go abandoned in the street — 

It is in that sober weather 

When the fowls are more in feather. 

And the furs are thicker grown, 
That the world shrinks under cover 
From the dun clouds reaching over. 

And the cares of life are known. 
(250) 



SELF-SA ORIFICE. 25 1 

Onl}^ such as keep in storage 
Goodl}^ bins, from Summer forage, 

Ma}' the barren days defy ; 
For the dream}'- thing that lingers 
With the blossom in its fingers, 

When the Winter comes, may die. 

But in man}'^ living creatures 
There's an impulse of their natures. 

Over care of life and pelf, 
And to save some thriftless neighbor, 
Man will yield his fruits of labor, 

Though it sacrifice himself. 

Here 's a case that is not common 
Even in the higher human, 

Though from underneath his house — 
'T is a simple illustration, 
From the lower tribe and nation, 

Of an antiquated mouse. 

It was in that edge of Winter, 
When the frost began to splinter 

Into pictures on the glass — 
When the red along the heather 
Told a rapid change of weather, 

That the matter came to pass. 



252 SELF-SACRIFICE. 

And 'twas in a tunneled entry 
From a kitchen to a pantiy, 

At the noontide of the day — 
Though the iAhqq was gloomy rather — 
That the antiquated father 

Had a solemn thing to say. 

So they came from every quarter, 
Male and female, son and daughter, 

There to hearken to the sage ; 
And with quiet, sober faces, 
There assumed such jDroper places 

As accorded rank and age. 

It was not a common meeting. 
Where they scramble over seating, 

Making every kind of noise ; 
For the maids were prim and steady — 
Each and every one a lady — 

And a decent set of boys. 

There was no outrageous stamping, 
Like a stud of horses tramping 

On a shaky bridge of rails ; 
But they sat respectful, stilly, 
Doing nothing rude or silly, 

With their faces, feet, or tails. 



SELF-SA CRIFICE. 253 

When tlic latest mouse had entered, 
With attention duly center 'd, 

And all noises under ban, 
From bis chill and dusky corner, 
Like an aged and shaken mourner, 

Thus the patriarch began : 

' I have called you here together, 
At the dawn of Winter weather, 

For a purpose fixed and strong ; 
And you see I 'm frail — I tremble. 
For I can not now dissemble, 

That my days may not be long. 

'Through the Summer, daily — nightly — 
I have sought to teach you rightly 

How to manage for your food ; 
And I 'd like to guide you longer, 
For there 's naught in life that 's stronger 
Than this holy tie of blood. 

• But, my children, I am going 
Where the bread of life is growing. 

In the Good Place up above ; 
And I leave you now in sorrow, 
To the mercies of to-morrow. 
With a legacy of love. 



254 SELF-SACRIFICE. 

" You will find it somewhat harder 
To be keeping up your larder, 

As the bleaker days go by. 
And I will not be your burden — 
And I pray this as a guerdon — 

Just to turn away and die. 

" So, my darlings, come and kiss me — 
You will sometimes sigh and miss me, 

But I know 'tis for the best. 
Let your hearts be light and cheery, 
For I 'm going where the weary 
And the laden are at rest." 

Ere the sage had finished speaking, 
There began a bitter squeaking 

All around about the 2:)lace ; 
And a troop of tearful misses 
Came and covered o'er with kisses 

All the beard upon his face. 

Then he gave such admonition 
As befitted their condition. 

And he urged them not to cry ; 
And he said : " All life is sorrow," 
And that maybe they to-morrow 

Would be going ofi" to die. 



SELF-SACRIFICE. 255 

And his sturdy sons protested 
That he never should be wrested 

From the kindness of their care ; 
That they 'd undergo the squeezes 
Of all crevices, for cheeses, 

And for other dainty fare. 

He should nibble at his leisure 
From their fullest store and treasure, 

And should never come to want ; 
That they 'd fill the tunneled entry 
From the kitchen to the pantry, 

And that nothing should be scant. 

But in vain was all persuasion — 
He had taken that occasion 

Just to speak a sad good-by ; 
He would hear no further pressing. 
So he gave them all his blessing. 

And he tottered out to die. 

Now, most truly, this was noble, 
Though 't was sore and bitter trouble 

Thus to see the parent go ; 
For the winds without grew bolder, 
And they whistled shriller, colder, 

Of the coming ice and snow. 



256 SELF-SACRIFICE. 

Through the chirk, unfriendly weather, 
Went they foraging together, 

All the little orphan'd mice; 
And their ways were illy chosen. 
For their feet and tails were frozen 

On the bleak plateau of ice. 

Sad indeed their lives, and trying, 
Full of sore distress and sighing 

For a father's guidance bold. 
And they wept such tears as only 
Little orphans, wretched, lonely. 

Weep for parents in the mold. 

By the wicked, cunning kitten 

Some where caught and badly bitten ; 

Others met their fate in traps ; 
Some were lying in the gutter, 
Dead of poisoned bread and butter, 

And from other sad mishaps. 

When at last there came a murmur 
From the trees, denoting Summer, 

They were very few indeed ; 
All were caught, or killed, or frozen — 
All, except, perhaps, a dozen. 

Now in dire distress and need. 



SELF-SACRIFICE. 257 

True, they held their tunneled entry 
To the old haunts in the pantry, 

Where the shelving ran below; 
But above the cornice, higher. 
Though 't was greatly their desire, 

They had never dared to go. 

Now, at last, their need was sorer, 
So they sent a bold explorer 

To the very to2)most shelf; 
One who swore to find the upper 
With its narrow chance for supper. 

Though he sacrificed himself. 

Up he clambers, now, and squeezes 
Eight between some bigger cheeses 

Than he 'd ever seen before, 
And he signaled with a squeak, a 
Something very like Eureka ; 

To the orphans on the floor ; 

And they raised their tails and started, 
Very brisk and happy-hearted, 

Up the angle of the wall ; 
Some were breathing like a furnace, 
And they overcame the cornice 

In a fever, one and all. 



258 



SELF-SACRIFICE. 

Tliougli the mice were not so miiiiy, 
Yet the biggest cheese of any 

Was their object of attack ; 
And a mouse who ran around it, 
Just to circumscribe and bound it, 

Found it open at the back, 

It was hard and heavy-crusted, 
Very green outside and musted, 

And they thought it not a sin. 
When their strongest, and their oldest, 
And their biggest and their boldest 

Brother orphan ventured in. 

So they all began to follow, 
And they gathered in the hollow 

Of the new-discovered liouse. 
And within — oh, melancholy ! 
Very sleek, and fat, and jolly. 

Sat that gra}', paternal mouse. 

This is where he came, in sorrow, 
When he left them to the morrow 

With his legacy of love ! 
This the heaven he was seeking. 
When he left his children, squeaking 

Of the " Good Place up above! " 



SELF-SA CRIFICE. 



259 



He who would not be a burden — 
He who prayed it is a guerdon 

Just to totter out and freeze — 
He had tottered out the entry, 
To the " Gdod Place " in the pantry, 

And had " frozen to " a cheese. 





THE LOST CUEL * 

AS it the ghost of a beautiful girl 
Flitting away from the sun, 
That out of its binding of amber and peurl, 
Lost, in the morning, a light-brown curl, 
Just as the night was done ? 



Lured by the glow of the Christ-night's moon, 

Came she out of her crypt. 
To patter the streets in her crystal shoon. 
Where the spars of frost, like the dews of June, 

Lay over the way she tript? 

Was it the ghost of a girl that died, 

Eipe for the sphere of wife, 
Just as the bloom of the oranges sighed 
To hide in the hair of the brown-curled bride. 

Whiten and freshen her life? 



••■ Lost, in this city, on Ann or Main street, Christmas morn- 
ing, a long, light-brown curl. The finder will please leave it at 
this oflfice. — Kentucky Yeoman. 

(200) 



THE LOST CURL, 



261 



Whoever shall find it, that light-brown ciirl, 

At break of the Christ-day lost, 
With moon in its amber and frost in its pearl, 
Must go to the grave of a beautiful girl, 

And ask for a brown -haired ghost. 





CULEX IN CAEMINE. 

HEN some migratory clouds, 
Broke upon the leafy shrouds, 
Where the insects la}^ in crowds, 

And a melancholy rain, 

On the sounding window-pane, 

Beats its funeral refrain, 

Through a crevice in the sash. 
Where the splatter and the dash. 
Made his purpose very rash, 

A mosquito, lean and thin. 
From the drowning and the din, 
Undertook to flutter in ; 

And a crazy shutter's swing, 
Made the hanging blossoms fling, 
Such a flood upon his wing, 

(262) 



CULEX IN CARMINE. 263 

That he rather fell than flew, 
And was fairly driven through, 
By the gusty wind that blew — 

Thus succeeding in his flight. 
From the unrelenting night, 
In a wet and wretched plight. 

'T was the chamber of a maid, 
Who, her perfectness displayed — 
In a measure — disarrayed ; 

For a taper in the gloom, 
Of the curtained, quiet room, 
Showed a woman in her bloom — 

And the mellow light was shed, 
On her bosom and her head, 
In the splendor of her bed. 

In a golden current there, 

Ran her undulating hair, 

From the polished shoulder bare. 

As the whitest foam that flees, 
Up the beaches from the seas, 
Lay the lace of her chemise ; 



264 CULEX IN CARMINE. 

And the billows of her breast. 
In the pillows there imprest, 
Kept an ocean-like unrest. 

Ah, 'twas well indeed for her, 
That the only viewer near. 
Was the poor mosquito here ; 

And 'twas better still for him, 
That his vision should be dim, 
In the halo of the glim. 

For the splendid creature there, 
With the gilding on her hair, 
Lay magnificently fair, 

And the smallest insect's eyes, 

Seeing such a paradise. 

Might be blinded with surprise. 

On the inner window-case, 
With his humid wing and face, 
He had anything but grace ; 

Whilst the mad, reminding rain. 
To the vibratory pane. 
Brought its horrible refrain. 



CULEX IN CARMINE. 

There upon the window-sill, 
He was sitting, dreary, still, 
In the terror of a chill ; 

But within his little soul, 
He was grateful for the hole 
That allowed him such a goal. 

So he brushed his little eye. 
Saying, " Maybe by and by 
I '11 be comfortably dry." 

And exactly as he planned 

With his stoicism grand, 

Both his dripping wings were fanned, 

For a breeze appeared to flout 
In the chamber all about. 
And the taper there went out. 

Then his eyes began to mark. 
By their tiny inner spark. 
What there was within the dark. 

It was very plain that he, 
With a candle burning free. 
Found it difficult to see. 



265 



266 CULEX IN CARMINE. 

But his eyes, denied their sight 
In the waxen taper light, 
Were exceeding good at night. 

B}^ and by, at last he tried, 

With a flutter at his side, 

And his little wings were dried ; 

And the still existing breeze 
Brought a very pleasant ease, 
To the bending of his knees. 

Then he fervently exclaimed ! 
" Now I wish I may be blamed 
If I 'm either wet or lamed." 

And he tried a tune of his 'n, 
Quite a striking kind of buzzin', 
" I 'm your Cousin, Cousin, Cousin ! " 

And as joyously he sings, 
All around about he flings, 
" Cousin, Cousin," with his wings. 

Then he went upon a raid. 
Through the heavy-curtained shade, 
'Till he came upon the maid. 



CULEX IN CARMINE. 26] 

And its meet and proper here 
That a reason should ajDpear 
Why he tarried there with her. 

So, the fact is simply this, 
When he came upon the Miss, 
He was famished for a kiss. 

Now, the coldest man we know, 

Coming on the Houri so. 

For the very same would "go." 

And it is n't fair to think, 

A mosquito on the brink 

Of a nectar-cup — won't drink. 

Splendid type of angel sleep ! 
Fairer than the pillows' heap. 
Lying there in silence deep — 

Who will blame him while he dips 
From the vintage of her lips, 
Redder wine than Bacchus sips? 

Less impassioned things of earth, 
Seeing such, would know their worth, 
Foci it in a fever birth. 



268 CULEX IN CARMINE. 

Any statue, wanting life, 

Neaving lips so passion-rife. 

Soon would wake to pulsing strife. 

So the glad mosquito sank 
Joyous on the fruity tank. 
And to utter fullness drank. 

Better far the cruel rain, 
Thrumming on the window-pane, 
Fell upon his wing again — 

Better far the shutter's swing. 
Caught his cousin-crying wing, 
Never more to let it sing. 

Better he had known a drouth 
In the marshes of the South, 
Than the nectar of her mouth. 

Early morning, fair and sweet, 
Found him helpless on a sheet — 
G-lassy eye and icy feet. 

Butterfly and humble-bee, 
For the coroner's decree, 
Early came the corpse to see — 



CULEX IN CARMINE. 269 

Laid him out upon the floor, 
Scanned his body o'er and o'er 
As it never was before. 

After consultation slow, 
Pro and con, and so and so. 
There they let the insects know : 

" This mosquito, lying dead, 
By the female in that bed, 
Pizined was with carmine red." 




THE COURT OF BERLIN. 

TNG Frederick of Prussia grow nervous and ill 
When pacing his chamber one day, 
Because of the sound of a crazy old mill 
That clattered so over the way. 

" Ho, miller ! " cried he, " What sum shall j^ou take 

In lieu of that wretched old shell? 
It angers my brain, and it keeps me awake " — 

Said the miller, " I want not to sell." 

"But you must," said the King — in a passion for once — 

" But I won't," said the man in a heat. 
" Gods ! this to my face? Ye arc daft or a dunce— 

We can raze your old mill to the street." 

"Aye, true, my good sire, if such be your mood," 

Then answered the man with a grin ; 

" But never you '11 move it the tenth of a rood 

As long as there 's law at Berlin." 
(270) 



THE COURT OF BERLIN. 



271 



" Good, good," said the King — for the answer was grand 

As opposing the Law to the Crown — 
" We bow to the Court, and the mill it shall stand, 

Though even the palace come down." 




THE LAST LEAF. 

T last I find the slighted page, 
On which no favored name 

Is dedicate to fame. 

t 

I write my own, and from this age. 
Go out the splendid years 
"With trooping knights of her's. 

What more could life's ambition crave, 
Than just to write and live? 
What more can labor give ? 

Hereby 1 rise from out the grave, 
And take a life in stone 
For one of dust unknown. 

(272) 




MAY IN MASON, 1775. 

jHEEE Limestone, with her gathered rills, 
A rocky passage follows ; 
Where Lawrence, breaking through the hills, 

Beats down the lonesome hollows ; 
The woods were dark and dense above, 

The canes were dank below, 
When houseless lay the city's cove 
An hundred years ago. 

In narrow way, by gulch and knoll. 

The brown deer broke his bearing; 
The grey wolf made the sloping mole 

An ambush for his faring ; 
The stately elk, with antlers wide, 

The nose-down buffalo, 
Their lickward way went side by side, 

An hundred years ago. 
(273) 



274 MAY IN MASON, 1775. 

The blue Ohio, gulfward bound, 

Eau ripples on the border, 
Where luiture gave the wanton ground 

Her winning, wild disorder. 
Nor sound of bell, nor sigh of steam, 

Nor oar-sweep creaking slow — 
The river lay a liquid dream 

An hundred years ago. 

The web-fowl nested in the sloo 

Beside the sliding otter ; 
The red maid, in her bark canoe. 

Just skimmed the slumb'rous water; 
The red man took the wareless game 

With sinew-twanging bow. 
Till Kenton's cracking rifle came, 

An hundred years ago. 

An hundred years ! What time ! What change ! 

To him who kept the tally, 
Till balder grew the bounding range, 

And busy grew the valley. 
There floats the smoke of forge and mill, 

That tireless ply below, 
Where stood the white cane, stark and still, 

An hundred years ago. 



MAF IN MASON, 1775. 275 

The willows died upon the shore, 

The beeches lost their glory ; 
The giant, white-barked sj^camore 

But lingers still in story. 
Now smoother w^ays go down the bank, 

To meet the water's flow — 
It never knew a steamer's plank 

An hundred years ago. 

These fallow lands that laugh to-day 

In summer's mulling juices, 
From wanton sleep and idle play, 

Were brought to truer uses; 
And daring hands were on the plow 

That broke the primal row, 
To see the tasseled corn -tops bow, 

An hundred years ago. 



The settler found his savage foes, 

In every copse appearing, 
And death was in the smoke that rose. 

Above the early clearing ; 
The toil was hard, the danger great, 

The progress doubtful, slow; 
But these were men who made the State 

An hundred years ago. 



276 . MAV IX MASON, 1775. 

Now closures grand and pastures green 

Are blocked about the Granii:es, 
And goodl}^ herds and homes are seen 

Along the olden ranges — 
The busy city rings with toil, 

The steamers come and go — 
God bless the brawn that broke the soil 

An hundred years ago. 

No longer in her bark canoe, 

The red maid skims the river ; 
The web-fowl's nestling from the sloo 

Has winged away forever ; 
A single line these lands abrade, 

The lick-bound buffalo 
Has left till now, the trace he made 

An hundred years ago. 

So let us leave our trace behind. 

And wear it broader, deeper, 
That coming man may bring to mind 

The courses of the sleeper — 
That after days may see our toil 

And women praise us so ; 
As brawny men who broke the soil 

An hundred years ago. 



PYTHIAN LINES. 

|IR Knights, when first to social ways 
Our early fathers turned, 
Ere in the rude, primeval days 

Their forest altars burned ; 
Before the Druids felt the dawn 

Of reason at their feasts, 
Or brought to shoulders bare and brawn 
The pelts of preying beasts ; 

Before the compact of our kind, 

By which, to human rules, 
Was bent the sway of savage mind 

In germinating schools, 
Man kept his law of /orce above, 

And lived by strength alone, 
Nor kindred claim, nor common love 

Nor civil bond was known. 
(277) 



278 PYTHIAN LINES. 

The fiaint traditions of the past, 

Brought up the tongues of Time 
Through maze of race, and creed, and caste^ 

In dust, and rust, and rime, 
Have told how in the Asia-phiins 

A virgin sod was thrown, 
How from its sparsel}^ scattered grains 

A cultured world has grown. 

The gray, historic stones that stand 

Along the backward aisles, 
To point the progress of the land. 

As though by measured miles, 
Are weather-stained, and still, and stark, 

And crumbling to the base, 
But still their iron closures mark 

The onward reach of Grace. 

Thus, step by step, the world has grown, — 

The civil creed prevailed ; 
Its grand estate, to-day, is shown 

For other heirs entailed. 
And generations yet to come 

Shall backward turn with smiles 
To point the solid shaft and dome 

We structure in the aisles. 



PYTHIAN LINES. 279 

Whilst yet the Christian era slept 

Unoi)ened to the years, 
And savage bands their victims swept 

To pagan sepulchres ; 
Some faith from man to man was plight. 

Some sympathies were born, 
And human kind from out the night, 

Beheld the break of morn. 

From ancient and heroic Greece ; 

From 'neath the walls of Eome; 
From times of war and times of peace, 

Our stately fables come. 
The annals of the olden world — 

For honor now avails — 
And give, in vellum scrolls unfurled, 

Their mythic moral tales. 

Of one of these was born the tic 

That binds the Pj'thic clan ; 
Was caught the heat of honor high 

That weldeth man to man — 
From out the forge of primal days 

We hear the hammer's beat, 
Where metal to the metal lays 

And makes the bond complete. 



280 PrTHIAX LIXES. 

Ye IVtbic Pages here, who wear 

The myrtle in 3'our breasts ; 
Ye proved Esquires who proudly bear 

The shield above your crests; 
Ye brave, chivalric Knights, Avhose feet 

Have borne the test of steel, 
Who wear your helmets now to meet 

The foes of common weal. 



The misty days that lie beyond 

This cycle of your lives, 
Shall keep the record of your bond 

In golden -bound archives ; 
Shall tune for you their sweetest reeds, 

And lengthen and prolong 
The music-story of your deeds, 

To everlasting song. 

As hostages ye stand to-day, 

Confiding to the last ; 
That yet shall come, from down the way 

The Damons of the past 
Though steeds may fail and foes maj' snare, 

And leagues may intervene ; 
^No wall shall stay the friends that wear 

The sprigs of myrtle green. 



PYTHIAN LINES. 



281 



Then keep your friendship pure and true, 

With caution wear your shields; 
Xo foes shall strike their lances through 

The brave hearts in the fields ; 
And when the living days have died 

And ritcd been and knelled, 
All coming Knights shall note with pride 

The confidence ye held. 




THE CEOWN ON GUAED 

HE Emperor Solyman, holding his Pleas, 
On taking the town of Belgrade, 
Observing a woman, bent down on her knees, 
Demanded what trouble she had? 

" My liege, I am widowed, alone, and in dole — 
Last night, as I lay in my sleep, 
Your soldiers came into my closure and stole 
The whole of my poultry and sheep." 

" Why slept you so well — and the robbers about ?" 

Then Solyman said with a sneer. 
" Oh, sire, when the Emperor watcheth without. 

How can a poor woman have fear?" 
(282) 



OUE DEAD. 

^M, ND still a mindful people turns 
^j To such as wear their crosses, 
Beneath a way of waving ferns 
And interwoven mosses. 

And still, with knots and crates of bloom 

With soonest blowing roses, 
They come to break the night of gloom 

That o 'er the hero closes. 

Here yet, by fingers deft from love, 
The wild vine's tendril 's matted, 

In tribute wreaths and crowns are wove, 
And lissom garlands plaited. 

Here yet, the new-strewn immortelles 

Of memory are saying, 
As tender-fresh as if the bells 

A dying chime were playing. 

(283) 



284 ^^'^ DEAD. 

And years have been, and years may b( 
And still shall gather yearly 

The fettered souls beside the free — 
The dead they love so dearly. 



And still shall freshest garlands fall 
From loving hands in showers, 

O'er fragments of the crumbled wall 
That closed the Land of Flowers. 

Here sleep the brave, the good, the true, 
The trusting and the daring ; 

The great, that in their living grew 
The laurels they are wearing. 

The battle-stains are on their breasts, 
The battle-currents clotted — 

An index on the outer vests 
Of inner men unspotted. 

An hundred mounds are circled near — 

An hundred heroes under ; 
An hundred knights that ne'er shall hear 

Again the battle's thunder. 



OUR DEAD. 285 

But o'er the turf in drooping fold, 

With broken staff, a banner 
Shall keep their knightly prowess told 

In true chivalric manner. 

Among the mounds are some whose names 

Upon the stones are missing — 
Who fell in front too soon for Fame's 

As for the mother's kissing. 

The brave "unknown " in martial pride 
And honored here and knighted ; 

We only know a hero died — 
A soldier's home was blighted. 

Be still, sad bells ! Where Hanson lies 
Ten thousand tongues arc telling; 

The wailing of a people rise 
Bej^ond an iron knelling. 

What need to wake a mournful tone 

Upon an anthem organ, 
Whilst broken rusts the sw^ord that shone 

Above the plume of Morgan ? 



286 OUR DEAD. 

What founts Kentucky starts for one, 
Of all her dead the newest ; 

For Breckinridge — her peerless son, 
Her proudest and her truest ! 

There shrouded lies her latest gift 
To God, and Fame, and Story, 

Whose going left a golden rift 
Upon the skies of glory. 

It may not be that in our day 
Yon blighted land will blossom — 

The land for which their coats of gray 
Grew crimson on the bosom ; 

But time will come at last for all, 
When from these mounds of ours 

The Master hand shall build the wall 
That closed the Land of Flowers. 




PAESON GILES. 

^1 T was not from dearth of churches, 
f In the plain of vernal birches, 

And its marge of uplands brown, 
That the Sabbath crowds were gathered, 
And their scores of horses tethered 

In the precincts of the town. 

It was not that zealous trying 
In the chancels there, was dying. 

Or the watch-lamps burning low ; 
That the wooded fanes Avere slighted. 
And their silent aisles benighted 

By a worship wandered fro. 

It was not from weaker passion 
For the press of morbid fashion 

On the virtue of the place ; 
Nor for any solace sweeter 
Than the sacred music-meter. 

And the cup of perfect grace. 
(287) 



288 PARSON GILES. 

There was such a world of teaching 
In the earnest, honest preaching 

Of the pleasant Parson Giles, 
That a Sabbath morning's ringing 
Of his service bell was bringing 

All the country in for miles. 

From the sweat and strain of tillage, 
They were turning to the village, 

Through its avenues and lanes; 
Making desolate the granges 
Of the outer-sleeping ranges, 

And the inner-sweej^ing plains. 

J^ot because his words were burning 
With a brilliancy of learning, 

In an ignorance and gloom ; 
Not because he went in roses 
Through his sermons to their closes. 

With a scatter of j)erfume ; 

But for reason that a feeling 
Came, the real man revealing 

In his preaching's every part ; 
Till the eyes about him glistened 
With a fervor, as they listened 

To the droppings of his lieart. 



PARSON GILES. 289 

Now it chances, in our courses, 
That we meet these stronger forces, 

Though the circumstance is rare ; 
And we note, through sharp attrition 
With a cunning world's ambition, 

AVho its real giants are. 

Men of Adam's form and feature 
Seek to rise above the creature, 

And to spurn their brother clods ; 
Egots, saying to the masses : 
Ye are dj'ing things and asses — 

We are living things and gods ! " 

These are of that wearing real, 
But the wanton, frail ideal, 

That so often leads astray. 
And the glamoured world, in sorrow, 
Sees the fouling mold to-morrow, 

Of its thing divine to-day. 

For the truer, better sample 
Of the Maker's cunning ample 

Cometh not from such as these ; 
Kot from such as give their faces 
To the peopled corner-places. 

With the ftiith of Pharisees : 



290 PARSON GILES. 

Eather men, whose finer natures 
Turn their pulses to the creatures 

Of an ever-falling kind, 
Such as bend beside the kneeling, 
More with plenitude of feeling 

Than vv^ith plentitude of mind. 

To the trusting eyes of woman 
Parson Giles was more than human — 

Good beyond the better ken ; 
As his simple thoughts were worded, 
So his ways in life were guarded, 

And he held respect of men. 

For the souls that went in blindness 
He was full of tender kindness, 

And he sought the beaten way. 
That to such his clearer vision 
Might deline the grand Elysian 

Of the shining final day. 

So a Sabbath morning's ringing 
Of his service bell was bringing 

All the country in for miles — 
There was such a world of teaching 
In the earnest, honest preaching, 

Of the pleasant Parson Giles. 



PARSON GILES. 291 

Dwelling in the Christian manor, 
Billy Jones, the village tanner. 

Stood without the temple door — 
He, alone, of all the people, 
In the shadow of its steeple, 

Never knelt upon the floor. 

Not because he held in scorning 
Any service on the morning 

Of the blessed Sabbath day ; 
For the time had been, with Billy, 
When his life ran not so illy, 

And his boyhood knew to pray. 

Those who saw his daily going 
With the silent, certain flowing 

Of an open ocean's tide, 
Truly said that something other 
Than the teaching of his mother. 

Turned his compass-point aside. 

It was clear to every neighbor, 
There was frequent, heavy labor 

In the breathing of his wife. 
And the village knew a reason 
For the tawny tanner's treason 

To the promise of his life. 



292 PARSON GILES. 

Not to deal in further hinting, 
Billy bore the scourge of vinting, 

Like a self- abusing monk, 
And his plain, unsteady swaying. 
Gave an honest ground for saying 

He was very often drunk. 

So he kept beyond the reaching 
Of the Parson's better teaching, 

Never coming in his wake — 
Giving up the spirits, drinking 
From a cup of sober thinking, 

For the morbid stomach's sake. 

All the deacons and the members 
Saw the rapid dying embers 

In the wicked tanner's soul ; 
And the case was gravely mooted 
As to who was better suited 

There to win him from the bowl. 

Brother BroAvn, his nearest neighbo 
" Couldn't undertake the labor. 
Having failed already twice; 
But he saw redemption in him, 
And if any man could win him, 
It was surely brother Price." 



PARSON GILES. 293 

" You must single out another," 
Answered quietly the brother, 

" I have made the etfort too ; 
I have sought him working, walking, 
And have done a sight of talking, 

Till I saw it would n't do." 

Then it was that Deacon Carson 
Made a mention of the Parson, 

As the proper one of all — 
Better suited, better able. 
To dispel the shadow sable 

Hiding Billy like a pall. 

So the Parson took the office, 
Feeling not unlike a novice 

In a case so tr3nng hard ; 
And he seized that very minute 
To establish and begin it, 

Going down to Billy's yard. 

" I believe, sir, you'll excuse me. 
And I think you'll not refuse me, 

What I very seldom pray — 
For I rather shrink from drumming — 
Will you favor me by coming 

To my preaching Sabbath da}^ ?" 



294 PARSON GILES. 

Billy Jones was not in liquor, 

Yet bis voice was somewhat thicker 

Than a sober man's should be ; 
And his nerves were slightly shaken, 
Though, perhaps, he had n't taken 

Of his measures more than three. 

And he seemed a little worried. 
For he turned the skin he curried, 

In a foolish sort of way ; 
Looking sidelong at his measure — 
" I will give myself the pleasure. 

Sir, to hear you Sabbath day." 

When the Sunday morning's ringing 
Of the meeting-bell was bringing 

All the people with its tones. 
Unto one it came appalling, 
For the tanner heard it calling 

Ycry plainly : " Bil-ly Jones." 

" Bil-ly Jones," it said, so truly. 
That the tanner answered duly 

And he sought the chapel door ; 
And the eyes of all were centered, 
As, with timid step, he entered 

Where he never did before. 



PARSON GILES. 295 

Parson Giles felt bighly honored 
When he saw the sinner cornered, 

For, at least, the coming hour, 
And he prayed with greater fervor 
For the soul of Satan's server, 

And he preached with greater power. 

In a sermon, terse and graphic, 
He besieged the liquor traffic, 

And he held its terror up. 
Till he painted every sorrow 
That the human soul could borrow 

From the Satan of the Cup. 

Somewhat late that Sabbath even, 
When a cloud went up the heaven 

Like a gloomy, hooded monk. 
There was heard the heavy mutter 
Of a being in the gutter — 

Billy Jones was very drunk. 

Thus a hope of saving smothers 
In the deacons and the brothers : 

" He is lost in Satan's wiles — 
He is gone be3^ond the reaching 
Of the most effective preaching 

Of the godly Parson Griles." 



296 PAESON GILES. 

But the Parson saw his beacons 
Giving light beyond the deacons 

And the brothers of the phice ; 
There was something rather winnii»g 
In the man's defiant sinning — 

And a courage in his face. 

So he sought again tlie tanner, 
With another sort of banner 

Than the pennant of his church — 
Like the youth of proud desire, 
Cr^nng " Higher ! Higher! Higher!" 

Till he perished in the search. 

" William Jones, I come to offer 
What an honest man ma}^ proffer 

With a noble aim and end ; 
I would like to know jovi better, 
Through the sacred bond and fetter 

Of a true and steadfast friend." 

Billy, then and there, was batting 
Down the tannin in his vatting, 

With a not unsteady hand ; 
Looking much as if he could n't — 
Or, most likely, if he would n't — 

Just exactly understand. 



PARSON GILES. 29' 

" It is not a worthless present,' 
Said the Parson, looking pleasant — 

" Not a simple work of art ; 
But the dearest thir.g- that nature 
Ever gives a human creature — 

I am come to give my heart." 

Perhaps from out the tumor 
Of his vices, Billy's humor 

Of the lower order came — 
Though he very seldom fretted, 
Yet he spoke and soon regretted. 

With a quite apparent shame. 

"Have you such a might of yearning 
Just to stop the little burning 

In the soul of such an elf? 
If you have, I '11 tell you, Parson, 
Its the clearest case of arson — 

I have set the match mj'self." 

Then he went on thumping, thumping, 
With his heavy pestle bumping 

In the corners of the vat — 
" So he does n't like my drinking ; " 
Billy then was doubtless thinking — 

'• Wonder what he thinks of that. ! " 



298 PARSON GILES. 

But the Parson not responding, 
Billy felt a certain bonding, 

Though he did n't see the band ; 
And he turned upon the preacher— 
" You shall be my friend and teacher ; 
Here 's a wicked devil's hand." 

Then began a true alliance 
'Twixt the two, in sin's defiance ; 

And the Parson's Sabbath tones, 
When his mellow bells were calling, 
Never failed to have a falling 

On the ear of Billy Jones. 

But, at intervals, a ripple 
Of the tanner's olden tipple 

Made a music in his throat, 
Till its sullen under-towing 
Set him to the breakers going. 

In a very crazy boat. 

More than once, the common treason 
Of his stomach to his reason, 

Bore him out upon the night; 
And his morrow's homeward swaying 
Set the neighbors all a-saying, 

" Billy Jones is in a plight." 



PARSOX GILES. 299 

Yet the Parson never faltered ; 
Bill}', sure, was somewhat altered, 

And it very clearl}' seemed, 
That with little harder trying. 
He might keep the man from dying. 

And he yet might be redeemed. 

So the bonds were closer riven, 
And the Parson's pulses given 

More than ever to the man ; 
In the change of time and weather. 
They were still allied together. 

And their ways together ran. 

jS^ow and then, but far less frequent, 
Billy found the olden sequent 

In the gutters of the town ; 
And the Parson, constant near him. 
Did the best to guide and cheer him. 

And to save his falling down. 

But at last the race is ended. 
And his broken life is mended ; 

And the country round for miles 
Gives the meed of earnest praising 
To the hand that did the raising. 

And the heart of Parson Giles. 



300 PARSOX GILES. 

So a Sabbath morning's ringing 
Of his raceting-bell was bringing 

All the people with its tones ; 
And the bell was never calling 
But the Parson's voice was falling 

On the ear of Billy Jones. 



When the winter days were coming, 
And the chilly breezes humming 

In the birches and the pines, 
When the riven leaves were shoaling 
To the valleys in their rolling 

From the barren mother vines. 

In the dead of night a groaning, 
Heard above the common moaning. 

Brought the people to their doors ; 
For the voice was surely human, 
And it sounded so uncommon. 

That the}' gathered out in scores. 

In the open highway lying, 
It was " sure a mortal dying," 

From the wailing and the groans ; 
But a little nearer vision 
Brought the piteous decision — 

" He is drunk, and — Billy Jones'' 



PARSOX GILES. 301 

'' How is that,' said Deacon Carson, 
"Ho was here to find tlie Parson 
But a little time ago ? 
Are you surely not mistaken?" 
And the voice came to the Deacon 
With a melancholy " No." 

'• Bring him in and let us see him ; 
We are sure it can not be him," 

Said a dozen men or more — 
So they raised the swaying body 
In its atmosphere of toddy. 

And they brought it to the door. 

Where the lami)-light's lurid streaming 
Fell upon it with the beaming 

Of a very demon's smiles, 
And their souls in horror fluttered 
When the blanching Deacon uttered : 

" God of Heaven ! Parson Giles !" 

Thus it was, the quiet village, 
And its outer bound of tillage, 

Saw the rise of Billy Jones. 
From the bitter slougli of drinking ; 
He was now of sober-thinking 

And a man of steady tones. 



302 



PAESON GILES. 



In their goodness they had sought him, 
They had bargained for and bought him, 

All the country round for miles — 
They had caught him will-he, nil-he, 
And were owners now of Billy, 

At the price of — Parson Giles. 

Thus the Parson won the tanner 
With another sort of banner. 

Than the pennant of his church — 
Like the bo}^ of bold desire 
Crying "Higher! Higher! Higher!" 

He has perished in the search. 




OMNIPOTE]J^S YEEITAS. 

OT the slightest breath of air 
Made a murmur anywhere 
In her majesty's j?ar^erre; 

Not a zephyr in the bounds 
Of the pretty palace grounds 
Went its odorating rounds; 

In the atmosphere's embrace, 
All the roses of the place 
Took a paleness in the face ; 

From the staring noon -sun rude, 
All the Calla lilies nude, 
Leaned away in lassitude. 

It was such a brazen day, 
That the fishes would not play 
From the hidings where they lay; 
(303) 



304 OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 

For the pool — a perfect glass 
III the framework of the grass — 
Kever felt a ripple pass, 

And the niider-peering trout, 
From the water-plants about, 
Did not dare to glitter out, 

When they could not choose but see. 
From the iii(\\\\g fleur-de-lis^ 
Such a mirrored misery. 

We would alwaj^s rather not 
Find it quite so burning hot 
In the most inviting spot; 

But it's one of Nature's ways 
Thus to sprinkle in her days 
Just a little bit of blaze; 

So that folk may keep an eye 

To the chances, by and by, 

For the weather — when they die. 

Hidden in the deeper shades — 
Loosened robes and lissom braids — 
- Lay the royal lady's maids ; 



OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 305 

Hidden from the greater heat, 

In the leafier retreat, 

Under droj^ping blossoms sweet. 

Where a pretty pink and gi'een 
Came the earth and sky between. 
Lay Her Majesty — the Queen ! 

And it 's quite enough to know 
That the meshy, mist}^ flow 
Of her lace was very low — 

Quite enough, beyond a doubt, 
Were it you or I without, 
To be putting us to rout; 

For there 's nothing half so rude 
As the spirit to intrude 
On a lady's solitude. 

But the branches disengage 
To a pretty, dapj)er page, 
With his privilege of age; 

Till beyond the jealous vines 
He may see the lissom lines 
Of the royal feminines. 



306 OMKIPOTENS VERITAS. 

(I confess a sort of spleen 
For these fellows of fifteen — 
They 're so very slow to wean.) 

•' If your Majesty so please, 
Here 's a man from over seas 
With a show of cunning fleas." 

There was dearth of every sort 
Of entertainment then, or sport, 
In the precincts of the court; 

For the days were coated o'er 
With a burning, hot glamour, 
And the nights — a stupid bore. 

So the startled ladies rose 
From their semi sort of doze, 
In a scantiness of clo'es; 

And with pretty shoulders bare. 

To the apparition there 

They returned the sudden stare. 

" Cunning fleas ! now tell us, pray," 

Said the maids in disarray — 
" Cunning fleas — and what are they ? 



OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. SO] 

Then the dapper chap replied, 
With a show of knowledge, pride, 
" They are insects taught to ride — 

" Taught to hop about and dance. 
At a motion or a glance. 
And their native place is France." 

And his terminating word — 
Quite the plainest one they heard — 
Touched a very tender chord ; 

Not a touch — a perfect wrench, 
For a woman, wife or wench. 
Covets anything that 's French. 

So they prayed the Queen that she — 
Since they 'd never seen a flea — 
Yery gracious now should be. 

And the languid lady Bess,* 
Hitching up her foamy dress, 
Very graciously said — Yes. 



* This incident, in a slightly modified form, is said to have act- 
ually occurred at the court of Queen Elizabeth, though it is 
sometimes located elsewhere. 



308 OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 

And the man from over seas, 

With his educated fleas, 

Came and fell upon his knees — 

Fell upon the grassy place, 
With a very French grimace. 
Which was understood as grace ; 

And his tiny team appears, 
Twenty Liliputian deers, 
In their homeopathic gears. 

And they move around a sheet, 
Now advance and now retreat, 
With a carriage all complete, 

Whilst a wonder and surprise 
Is besprinkled on the skies 
Of a dozen splendid ej^es. 

And "their graces" crowd about, 

In a timid sort of doubt. 

Lest a flea should struggle out ; 

Lest the whiteness of a breast 
Should invite a little guest 
To a refuge and a rest. 



OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 309 

(They were apt to tempt him so 
In the vicinage and show 
Of their laces lying low.) 

And it happened so at last, 
As the carriage rattled past 
That a flea became unfast. 

The little wretch upon her, 
A pretty maid of honor, 
Was suddenly a goner. 

Now it may have been the chance, 
That the rascal in his dance 
Caught the pretty woman's glance; 

And it may have been that he 
In a very slight degree, 
Was a humanated flea; 

For it should n't give surprise 
If a splendid woman's eyes 
Such a thing should humanize. 

So to cause him break a trace 
To be roving in the lace 
Of a fair forbidden place, 



310 OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 

When, perhaps, the insect knew, 
What the Bible holds as true. 
That "no man would there pursue." 

We are very apt to be 

On the side of those that flee 

To the land of liberty ; 

But the master claimed his own, 
Though the little slave had gone 
To a vastly freer zone. 

To another place of shade, 

Very nervous and afraid, 

Ean the startled, blushing maid^ 

Left the others in the lurch, 
And beneath a friendly birch, 
Went to instituting search. 

How her nimble fingers flew 
All the sacred places through. 
Is denied to me and you. 

We may only fancy where, 
In the lacy meshes there, 
He was captured in despair. 



OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 31 X 

We may only wish to be, 
For a little time, the flea, 
In his land of liberty. 

But a tardy moment past, 
^''ow the lady comes at last, 
Holding som.ething very fast. 

And the fellow takes her hand 
With a smile exceeding bland. 
At the honor " vere grande." 

He recovers now his flea 
From the palpitating she. 
In a perfect ecstasy. 

But all joys are ever fleet, 
And this triumph in retreat 
Left a misery complete. 

For his face was overtost 

With the sudden white of frost— 

Zis is not ze flea I lost !" 

Now the world was out of tune 
On the sultry afternoon 
Of that brazen day in June, 



312 OMNIPOTENS VERITAS. 

But it 's one of Nature's ways 
Thus to sprinkle in her days 
Just a little bit of blaze. 

So that folks may keep an eye 
To the chances, by and by, 
For the weather when they die ! 

In the days of green or brown. 
Let us keep our vices down, 
That we may not miss the crown 

Let us keep our bosoms free 
From the world's iniquity, 
And give up the proper flea. 




"FEOM ME TO YOU." 

MUST not write— 't is better here 
To let the pure, white page appear! 
I mast not speak — the gossip-air 
Might give an echo everywhere; 
JSTo words of love, however true, 
Shoukl ever pass from me to you. 

I must not whisper how, at night, 
I meet you in the still starlight. 
1 must not whisper how it seems 
I love you dearly in my dreams. 
Nay, nay, I 'm sure it would not do — 
Such words as these from me to you. 

What if I met you in the grove. 
And held your hand and told my love? 
What if you turned away and wept 
Or spoke me tender whilst I slept ? 
It is not wrong to dream, 't is true, 
But should I tell my dream to you ? 
(313) 



314 ''FROM ME TO YOUr 

What if I pressed your finger-tips, 

And gathered sweetness from your lips? 

What if I lingered still and placed 

An arm about a slender waist? 

Say, would you have the dream come true, 

Such love as this from me to you. 

Awake, I could not dare to seek 

The peachy softness of your cheek — 

Awake, you might not even brook 

The sweet af)pealing of a look. 

I will not speak — until it be 

The look has come from you to me. 





GAMBKINUS. 

HEN the leaves began to settle 
In a crimson, crisp and brittle, 
On the bosom of the Ehine, 
Somewhat cold, and more than sober, 
Came the gold and gray October, 
To the land of fruit and vine. 

Here and there, along the fallow. 
Tangled hops hang dry and yellow 

In the Autumn's faih'ng sun ; 
And the ravaged grape-fields, lying 
Over all the fells, were sighing ; 

" This the vintager hath done." 

Eavaged truly, for the juices 
Of the clusters, down the sluices 

Of the presses, ran to must ; 
And the gnarly tendons, riven 
Of their substance, thus were given 

To the griming and the rust. 
(315) 



316 GAMBRINUS. 

It was siiddcr, far, tlian sober, 
When the golden, cold October, 

Breaking down the North's incline, 
Hurtled South — a crashing missile, 
To the frond, and fruit and thistle, 

Of the silent-iroinii: Khine. 



& 



It was not so good a season 
For the callow man's unreason, 

As the throbbing days of spring; 
When the blood-valves start and flutter, 
And the eyes grow dense to utter 

What the tongue is slow to sing. 

But, beneath a browning maple. 
Where the sun, in yellow dapple, 

Made its flecking at his feet. 
Somewhat branch-inclosed, and hooded, 
Young Gambrinus lay and brooded 

In a bitterness complete. 

For it seemed this stormy feature 
Kept its tiding in his nature. 

Spite of all the Autumn's chiil. 
And his saps of love were going 
In a ceaseless, fever- flowing 

To the fraulein at the mill. 



GAMBRINUS. 31 

Swcet-ej^ed Grotcheii— fresh and splendid, 
In her lines of beauty, blended 

Twixt the woman and the girl ; 
Fair-faced Gretchen, blithe and riant- 
Graced of form and lithe and pliant. 

As the winding of her curl. 

Keeping watch to intercept her, 
As the singing mill-maid kept her 

Leafy way around the hill ; 
He was planning how to freshen 
Then his suit, with some expression. 

Than his stronf^cst — stron<2:er still. 



.^^^. """^"&^ 



Time on time, with fervid passion, 
lie had tried his speech to fashion 

So to fill her with his dole ; 
So to bring her coj^ defiance, 
Into love's distraught alliance — 

Hand to hand, and soul to soul. 

" Hear my plea, O ! cruel Gretchen ! " 
Words of heat he sought to etch in 

Lines of fire on his brain ; 
When her notes, all clear, all sweetness, 
Toned and round to all completeness, 
Fell upon him like the rain. 



318 GAMBIUNUS. 

Starting up, he stood and met her, 
As she broke the leafy fetter 
Of her erisping eareless way : 
" Gretchen ! " — That was all he uttered 
Lost the rest — he faltered, muttered — 
Tongue and eye and brain astray. 

There before him, proudly taking 
Freer lines of queenly making, 

Giving sense of strong surprise ; 
Full her regal presence spurned him. 
And her scorning withered, burned him 

Through the furnace of her eyes. 

" Get you gone ! I make no trothing 
With a kerl who counts for nothing — 

Stand aside and let me pass! " 
Oh, the sudden, sudden stinging! 
Back he shrank — and she went singing 

Down the Autumn's faded grass. 

Then the reddened sun went over, 
And, anon, the silent river 

Caught the moon-spears glinting down ; 
And the gray-stalked water lil}^ 
And the tinted wood lay stilly. 

And the mead and distant town. 



GAMBRINUS. 319 

On a rock, the Ebiiic o'erreacbing, 
Stood Gambrinus, dcatb beseecbing 

From tbe silent underflow — 
Fixed of purpose : " I am notbing — 
Be my wooing — be my trotbing, 

Witb tbe waters bere below." 

Not so fast, good friend, I pray 3'ou — 
Tbere be reason to delay you 

Would 3'ou make a time to die ? 
Would you culminate tbis fever 
Into dismal j)ain forever, 

And tbe Deity defy. 

" Take my word— it 's worse tban folly, 
Tbus to yield to melancboly, 

And to nullify jowy life— 
Witb a plunge, to make it sborter 
By a single day, in water 

For a woman— not a wife. 

"I admit— did Ilvmen's mande 
Press you sorely, you would strangle 

Witb a better sbow of grace ; 
But to breali: your brimming cruses 
Just because a maid refuses. 
Is a most outrageous case. 



820 GAMBRINUS. 

" You must live sir — live to sluimo lior — 
(You could never live to tame her 

In the propagating bond), 
Live to have her sigh and sue 3'ou 
AVitli a longing to beshrew 3^ou 

When you cease to be so fond. 

" For myself, it isn't pleasant 
To deter you, but at present 

I am rather full below ; 
And 1 find it awkward firin^r 
For the tide that 's never tiring, 

Never ceasing in its flow. 

" You may live in peace and pleasure — 
Pride and glory Avithout measure, 

For the coming thirty years 
I will make you wiser, richer 
Than the maid who broke the pitcher, 

And who wept the pearly tears. 

"You shall live, I swear, to fetch 
Such a rare remorse to Gretchen, 

That she '11 come and sue ' the keri,' 
And when you find you 've caught her, 
You can spurn the miller's daughter, 

And mayhap, the Kaiser's girl." 



GAMBRINUS. 321 

Now, of course, Gambrinus hearkened, 
For the way was dank and darkened, 

To the quiet underneath ; 
So he forced a smile, and turning : 
" I prefer remoter burning, 

And accei^t the further death." 

" Well, good friend, the pact is settled, 
Be you proud and proper mettled, 

When the miller's maid appears ; 
Shun all women — keep you steady; 
Be you brave and — be you ready • 
At the end of thirty years." 

Then the form in green grew faded, 
Till the last faint line was shaded. 

And the last light shadow fled ; 
And the saved and lost Gambrinus, 
Plus his life, and Gretchen minus, 

Wandered home and went to bed. 

Now, Gambrinus was a fiddler. 
Or, in equal words, an idler, 

For he kept no honest call, 
And his fitter days for sowing, 
Were declining fast and going 

Very fleetly into fall. 



322 GAMBRINUS. 

lie luid wasted days for gi'apiug, 
111 a dream}', dreary scraping 

Over vibratory strings, 
When he might have borne the clusters 
To the brawny, lusty musters, 

To the end of better things. 

But the morrows come, and gilders 
Crowd upon him till he wilders 

In the rocks about the fells ; 
And, the devil for his Mentor — 
He became the glad inventor 

Of the music-making bells. 

All around the hills with rhyming. 
Then his chiming bells went climbing. 

Flinging ringings on the Ehine, 
And the people paused, admiring, 
As his bells went on aspiring 

To a melody divine. 

Gretchen sat and ceased her singing, 
When the belfry bells were swinging, 

For they gave her cruel pain ; 
And she sighed : " O, lost, lost lover ! 
Make thine Autumn plainting over I 

Speak me tender onco again." 



GAMBIilNUS. 323 

But ho beard her not, nor sought her, 
And she walked beside the Avatcr, 

Halting, songless and aJone ; 
And the golden-grown October 
Found her saddened, now, and sober, 

To the maj^les making moan. 

Later still, a fuller measure 

Gives he now to Teuton pleasure — 

More than all his tender bells — 
In a grotto, green, and shady, 
There the amber lager made he 

From the barley on the fells. 

Lager ! bright and clear and creamy — 
Lager, ripe and rare and dreamy — 

Oh, the cool, delicious draught ! 
Never came such royal liquor 
To his lips, as filled the beaker 

That the noble Kaiser quaft. 

Soon the court grew all unsteady 
From the foaming ewers heady — 

For the lords and ladies drank — 
And the Queen,* who tried to stand hers. 
Dubbed Gambrinus, Count of Flanders — 

And they recognized his rank. 

"■■•According to the m^'thic story, Gambrinus was mride Cdunt of 
Flanders, by the Kaiseriu. 



324 GAMBRINUS. 

Kichcs, honors on him thickened, 
Till the spirit in him quickened 

Underneath his merry chimes ; 
And his life run leal and rarely 
In among the bins of barley, 

Like a symjohon}^ of rhymes. 

Never sought he now to fashion 
Any speech of burning passion, 

Underneath the maple bough ; 
But his days went on right lightly, 
And his lager cheered him nightly, 

Neither fraulin-hound novfrmi. 

Gretchen prayed in vain some token 
Of the Autumn -fever, broken. 

In the fervid days of old — 
She was free to spurn the trothing 
" Of the kerl who counts for nothings" 

Not the Count who counts the gold. 

Many fraul ins, fair and gentle, 
Bowed their braids beneath his lintel, 

With the tender flush that tells ; 
But he sat and sipped his lager 
With the Kaiser or the burgher, 

And he listened to his bells. 



GAMBRINUS. 

By and by, the years were wasted, 
And his merry days had hasted 

Very nearly to their close ; 
And his corner-clock was picking 
Out the seconds with its ticking, 

As he fell into a doze. 

Satan told the time as fairly 

As the brewer bought his barley ; 

Not a measure less or more, 
Duly marked he all, and reckoned 
Every day and hour and second, 

From the thirty years before. 

• Hither, varlet ! slave ! imp ! Yinus I 
Go, inform the Count Gambrinus, 

That the moon is on the Ehine — 
That I wait him at the river, 
Flowing free and full forever, 
For his soul is mine — is mine ! " 

Yinus went, and sharply tapping. 
Broke the stillness of his napping, 

As the door was open thrown — 
' You 're the Devil's man, I augur, 
Take a seat and have some lager — 

I was sound asleep, I own." 



126 GAMURINUS. 

'•Quite correct," responded Viiuis, 
I am here, Sir Count Gambrinus, 

On a mission from the Crown ; 
But, I very freely toast you. 
May the Devil spit and roast you 

Yery done and very brown." 

" You 're facetious — try another," 
And the count began to smother 

From the sulphur in the air ; 
And he felt Belial's skewer, 
Though he filled the pewter ewer 
Much as if he didn't care. 

" By great Pluto ! I am thinking 
This is most delicious drinking. 

Full of life and laugh and song; " 
" Tr}^ some more, sir — my own making." 
" Would you care, sir, for my taking, 

Say — a dozen kegs along ? " 

" Care ! you ninny ! get 'em ready ; 
Do I look so stiff and steady ? 

Fill my pewter up again. " 
Here he drank and paused a little : 
" By the great red middle kittle 

You 're a grander man than Cain ! " 



GAMBRIXUS. 32i 

Then he filled and kept on filling. 
And the count was more than willing. 

For his moments now were gold. 
' Tr} another ! take the pitcher, 
You will find it riper, richer — 

Do 3^011 mind its being cold?" 

' Fill her up ! By Death ! I '11 stand her, 
May you prove a sal-a-man-der ! " 

Here he fairly toppled o'er ; 

' Fill the pitcher — fill her level, 

I'm as drouthy as the— Devil, 

Just a little, lit — tie more ! " 

Then Gambrinus kept on pouring, 
Till his visitor was snoring, 

And the night was wearing on ; 
<' I will keep my vigil by him, 
I will wait and watch and ply him 
Till the breaking of the dawn." 
^ :^ -^ ♦ ^ 

On the morrow when the shiver 
Of the sunshine on the river 

Made the Ehenish border bright, 
Yinus waked, and stared, and wondered : 
" Into what rare region blundered 
I from everlasting night? " 



828 GAMBRINUS. 

" Have another mug of beer, sir, 
We are quiet, private here, sir," 
Said Gambrinus, speaking low. 
"Who are you, sir ? By old Harry ! 
He 's the chap I came to carry 
To the kingdom down below." 

" Take a mug to make you steady — 

I 'm the man, and here, and read3%" 

And he made a sober bow — 

" Eeady, are you ? Poor, frail human ! 

Why, I'd rather take a — woman 

Than to face the Devil now." 

" Get you there as best you can, sir, 
I will never go to answer 
For my fiiilure in the trust." 
" Try another," said the brewer, 
Holding up a brimming ewer ; 
But he vanished in a gust. 

Then the years went on renewing, 
With the brewer at his brewing 

Still beneath his chiming bells; 
And the sad, sore-hearted maiden. 
With a great regret o'erladen, 

Lingered still along the fells. 



GAMBRINUS. 829 

Then they crowned him King of Lager — 
All of Satan's scheming mangre — 

And he grew to fullness grand ; 
And he drank : " God save the Kaiser! 
I 'ni a beicer man and Aviser, 

Light of heart and free of hand." 

Then, for Gretchen, pale and pretty, 
lie was filled at last with pity, 
And he thought to ease lier pain ; 
" I will wed her," said Gambrinus — ■ 
" To that pleasant follow, Vinus, 
Should he come this way again." 




THE GROVE AT ST. ELMO 

HE Grove at St. Elmo, by moonlight, is fair — 
Cool shadows, green curtains, long grass, and 
fresh air — 
(I envy the man who is domiciled there) — 
Beneath it the city, dull, smoky, and gray, 
The river in glimpses, and hills either way. 
Those beautiful hills, tree-covered and blue, 
In the mist of the morning — and here, looking through 
The tangle of vines, as the shine of the moon 
Falls over the summits, all golden as June, 
Though late in the August — I wonder how long 
It will be till the true poet comes with his song — 
Thellhine hath its castles of art ; its bridges, the Thames : 
The Hudson, its somnolent hollows — all names 
AVrit strongly in picture — but, standing alone, 
The cliffs of Kentuck}^ are nearly unknown. 
If Taylor should come to St. Elmo, and sketch 
The undulant range of its westermost stretch. 
And tell in his song, as he told of Cashmere, 
The eye of the world would be wandering here. 

(330) 



THE GROVE AT ST. ELMO. 
St. Elmo ! I sit in the cooi of its vines, 



Strung to a voice of the tenderest lines — 

Strung to the sweetest accord of a song — 

A heart-cry of passion — " How long ? how long ? " 

Over me glitters the white, briglit star, 

Eiding the sky in the distance far, 

Riding the sky and filling the sphere 

With a sense of light and a song of her. 

Vine after vine, goes out of the yard, 

Up to the curve of the gray Mansard 

Of the beautiful house — lines of art 

Over St. Elmo and over my heart. 

I hear in the grove, as I linger yet, 

The steady play of the parlor jet, 

The steady fall and the music-play 

Of a western window's fountain spray; 

I hear it fall in a tinkle brief. 

Over the ivy's waxen leaf; 

Over the C3'prcss, frail and fair ; 

Over the cups of fuchsias rare ; 

Fresh and sweet, and pure and cool 

As the drip of the moss in the mountain pool. 

The grove of St. Elmo, laid leaf}^ and still. 
The moonlight fair — the grass-grown hill — 
I could lie all night in the glow and gaze 
As the stars go down in the Eastern haze. 



THE PlIOTOGEAPIl.* 

I ND was there more of tenderness exprest 
Than ever ^-et ra}' tongue had dared to speak, 
When I but took thy shadow to ray breast — 
When I but touched the semblance of thy cheek ? 

I do not know — I did not mean to wound — 
I coukl not soil the wdiiteness of thy life ; 

I see too clear the margin and the bound ; 
I hold too high the sacred name of wife. 

And 3'et, Irene — how sweet the name — it seems 
That all the currents of my soul are thine ; 

For I have called thee darling in my dreams, 
And felt the pressure of thy lips to mine. 



■''■ The person for whom these verses were written had impulsively 
und boyishly kissed the photoj^raph of a married lady, in her pres- 
ence, very naturally giving offense. The author was invoked to 
make an apology in rhyme, and the lady pronounced the apology 
far worse than the offense. I submit the question to the tribunal 
of the public. 

(332) 



THE PHOTOGRAPH. ^'i,^ 

Forgive me, that I sin so in my sleep — 

I would not that the dream should ever end ; 

Nor would I have thee turn away and weep 
To find the guilty lover in th}^ friend. 

This life is but a shadow at the best, 
And every day is but a hope denied ; 

And I would take thee silent to my breast. 
And call thee darling, darling, if I died. 




NOTES. 

Jacob Brown, from which this little volume takes its name, 
is a rhjme designed to make laughter from its very broadness. 
It was sold to Mr. Frank Leslie several years ago, and appeared 
with handsome illustrations in one of his popular journals, 
I am much indebted to the wide circulation of his paper for its 
apparent popularity. 

True Version was written at the instance of a charming 
lady, who wondered why I had not employed the figure of the 
vine and the oak, so common to poetry, in representing man 
and woman. She had been widowed long enough to fully 
authorize me in expressing a belief that the vine generally killed 
the tree. So, at her suggestion, I wrote the lines down to the 
last stanza, which is due to her own spirit of humor. 

The Midnight Rose and the Last Leaf were written to the 
lady referred to above. Many of her friends will recognize the 
direction of the Midnight Rose, from a familiar knowledge of 
her social economy. 

Metempsychosis was an impromptu to a lady friend, from the 
rare beauty of whose weird ideas the writer has drawn largely. 
The lines are printed without her consent, but he hopes not 
without her approval. 

The Lost Curl speaks for itself. The fair girl who sustained 
this serious misfortune, should be happy in the pof session ol 
many more natural attractions. 

(:]35) 



336 NOTES. 

CuLEX IN Carmine was written for a lady who was good 
enough to pardon the ideal invasion of a sacred place for the 
rightful punishment which ensued. If the moral of this poem is 
at all obscure, the author will be happy to make it plain upon 
personal application. 

Parson Giles is printed here with timidit}'. Upon its first 
appearance — in questionable shape — it inspired a friendly but 
rather severe criticism from one well calculated to discriminate 
between a pleasant humor and a doubtful propriet3^ I refer to 
the cultivated and world-known Dr. II. A. M Henderson, in 
whose personal regard I desire always to be held blameless. In 
the controversy which ensued through the columns of the 
Courier-Journal and the Kentucky Freemason^ I am at liberty 
to say there was nothing acrimonious and that the relation of 
friendship has never been disturbed between us. I print the 
poem, not in defiance of his opinion, but in defense of my own; 
for as long as I remain conscious of no desii^n to reflect upon 
the character of the cloth, the mere jarring of a few ill-selected 
words should not harm me in his opinion or in that of any 
individual of the class of society to which he belongs, and which 
I respect more sincerely than any other. 

Weeds is purely an imaginative poem, based upon the 
uncharitable view which many persons take of a real distress. 
It is ever a source of comment among gossiping people when a 
woman is left alone in the world, and kind-hearted people and 
ill-natured people are alike free in expression. 

Self-sacrifice approaches satire a little nearer than any- 
other of these compositions, but it was not designed to be so, 
and I disclaim any attempt to cast reproach upon any venerable 
gentleman. 

Gambrinus is a mere metrical rendering of an old German 
story, found in a volume entitled " Myths and Myth-makers," by 
a graceful author whose name I have been ungraceful to forget. 



NOTES. 337 

May in Mason Avas written for the Centennial of corn-planting 
by Simon Kenton, in Mason county, at the celebration of which 
I was honored by an invitation to participate. 

The Red Cross will be better understood and appreciated by 
those who have been stricken with the bare blade, and who have 
participated with ine in libations never to be forgotten. 

Pythian Lines were written for a brotherhood in whose 
bonds I am proud to be known. When the^' were announced as 
in hand for publication, an unscrupulous Bohemian, who is ever 
read}' to sacrifice a friend at the shrine of a witticism, took occasion 
to remark he was " glad to discover something pithy in this 
author's verses." 

Drawing it Fine was intended to point a moral as well as 
to inspire a smile. If both are not obvious, I have clearly missed 
an aim. 




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